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Our Neighbors:
The Chinese
By Joseph King Goodrich
A handy-volume series, treating in an interesting,
informing way the history and characteris-
tics of " Our Neighbors " of other lands
Ready: THE JAPANESE
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Each, 16mo, illustrated, $1.25 net
A
(TOR In Female Cosiume
Our Neighbors:
The Chinese
BY
JOSEPH KING GOODRICH
Sometime Professor in the Imperial College, Kyoto
WITH 16 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
CHICAGO
BROWT^E & HOWELL COMPANY
191S
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS
Copyright in England
All rights reserved
PLliLISHED, OCTOBER, 1913
THB-PLIMPTON-PRESS
NORWOOD-MASS'U-S-A
THE UBTIARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA _ —
CONTENTS
CHAPTEB PAOK
I. Who are the Chinese ? 1
II. The Republic op China 16
III. Myths about Creation and other
Things 30
IV. Chinese Literature and Folk-lore . . 45
V. Education: Former and Modern . . 59
VI. Home and Family Life 72
VII. Occupations 87
VIII. Pleasures of Life 101
IX. Social and Official Classes . . . 114
X. Court Life: Ancient and Modern . . 127
XL The People of the Eighteen Provinces 140
Xll. The Mongols and the Manchus . . 154
XIII. The Tibetans and their Country . . 167
XIV. The Mohametans 180
XV. How THE Chinese Came to be Known to
the Rest of the World .... 194
XVI. A Chinese Boy's Life 207
XVII. A Chinese Girl's Life 220
XVni. Tii.\vELiNG IN China 231
XIX. How the Chinese Live 243
XX. The World and the New Republic . . 254
Bibliography 203
Index 271
ILLUSTRATIONS
Actor in Female Costume Froniitpiece
Pagoda near Canton facing page 40
Main Street, Mukden 90
A Fruit and Vegetable Market 96
Women with Small Feet 118
A Public Garden, Mukden, Manchuria 124
Manchu Mausoleum: Interior of Grounds . ... 138
Mausoleum of a Manchu Ruler 156
Manchu Mother and Children 158
Manchu Woman in Full Dress 160
Manchu Geisha 164
Manchu Married Woman: The Headdress Indicates
the Fact 166
Street Scene. Mukden: Temple Wall 216
Railway Station, Mukden: Water Carts .... 234
Night-soil Gatherers 246
An Official Residence 248
Our Neighbors:
The Chine se
CHAPTER I
WHO ABE THE CHINESE?
IT is easier to ask this question than it is
to answer it. Of course, if we mean
nothing more than the people of the pres-
ent Kepublic of China it is not dififtcult to
give some sort of a reply which will be satis-
factory to most inquirers. It is true even
when we think of the Chinese Eepublic in
its widest range and include not only the
actual Chinese themselves, but all the other
peoples who are officially citizens of the Re-
public. Some of those citizens who do not
answer to the name Chinese, have always
given more or less trouble, and at the
present moment, citizens of Mongolia and
of the extreme northwestern and western
provinces of Cliina, are showing anything
but a clieerful willingness to respect the new
government and to become peaceful citizens
of the youngest republic, but tlie oldest
government in the wliole world. To this
1
2 OUE NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
subject we shall return in a subsequent
chapter.
There are two ways by which answers of
a kind may be given to the question, " Who
are the Chinese?" One refers to the posi-
tion amongst the rest of mankind that near-
ly all the citizens of China are given by
those who make the study of mankind their
proper study. Ethnologists do not hesi-
tate to say that practically all the inhabi-
tants of the Chinese Republic belong to the
yellow race; that they are Mongoloids.
That is true; but do we know just whence
the yellow-skinned people came originally?
No, we do not.
I am afraid we must give up the idea that
all the seventeen hundred million inhabi-
tants of the world came from just one
original Adam and Eve, and that the
tremendous differences which are to be noted
in anatomy, skin, hair, and many other
physical details, are all just the effect of
climate, physical and climatic surround-
ings, conditions of life, etc. Even the
strictest Christian evolutionist has to admit
that it is probable the development of the
human being from a lower type of animal
life, took place in several different parts
of the globe, and it is reasonable specula-
tion to say that probably this evolution of
the very first individuals of the several
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 3
types of mankind, took place at times which
were widely separated, if we measure by
years or even by centuries.
Now as to speculation, it is interesting
to read what such a brilliant ethnologist as
Count Gobineau says of the evolution of
the three great types of mankind. He con-
sidered it sufficient to limit the varieties of
mankind to that number, and he distin-
guished them as the white, the yellow, and
the black. Other ethnologists have not
been satisfied with this limitation of the
numbers of primary types, and have felt it
to be necessary to add the red and the brown.
The former of these permits us to put the
many tribes of American Indians — all in
the North, the Central and the South Amer-
icas — into a separate group from the yel-
low; the latter permits us to separate the
peoples of southern Asia from the blacks
of Africa and some of the Pacific Islands.
It seems more satisfactory to divide the
peoples of the earth into five races than to
limit them to three; because it is difficult
to nmke ourselves believe that the ancient
civilization of Central and South America
was that of a people who were precisely the
same in all respects as the yellow races of
Asia. So, too, it is almost impossible to
put some of the brown peoples of Rritisli
India, Southern Asia, and the East Indian
4 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Islands, in the same class as the true Cau-
casian, while it is repulsive to think of them
as precisely the same as the typical African
negro.
Count Grobineau put forward the theory
that the yellow race was originally created
in America. Of course he did not pretend
to say in just what part of our continent
the great miracle of evolution from brute
to human was performed, yet he seemed to
think there w^ere some advantages for the
peoples of the western part of North Amer-
ica over those of the eastern ; and that these
advantages were shared by the Peruvians
and some other peoples. In taking this
strange position, Gobineau intimated that
the yellow race has a tremendously long
record in point of time, and in that respect
was a race of great dignity. Because, if
that theory is correct, the migration of the
yellow people to Asia must have been at a
time so long ago as to have made no marks
which at present survive in the myths and
legends of the Chinese or their predecessors
in any part of Asia.
The yellow emigrants are supposed to
have made their way across the narrow
Bering Sea into Kamchatka; then by the
way of Siberia until they had skirted the
Khan Oula and the Altai ^Mountains which
do seem to separate Siberia from Mongolia.
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 5
After that they passed down through Tur-
kestan and the countries west of the moun-
tains called Tian Shan until they reached
the Transcaspian District of the Russian
Empire on the eastern shores of the Cas-
pian Sea and the northern parts of Bokhara,
Afghanistan, Persia, etc.
It is probably well, although purely
speculative, that such migration should be
borne in mind, because it does tend to give
a clue as to why certain of those Mongolians
in later and historic times were found in
places from whence they came. It also has
some tendency towards explaining why the
theory of another eminent ethnologist may
be correct.
That theory is now to be discussed.
Professor Terrien de Lacouperie was a
Frenchman who went to China about the
middle of the nineteenth century to engage
in commerce. He studied the language and
eventually turned from commerce to pursue
ethnological research, and when he returned
to Europe he became professor of compara-
tive philology of tlie Southeast Asiatic
languages in University College, London.
lie advanced the theory that somewhere
about the twenty-tliird century before Christ
a large body of people began a migration
eastward from the country south of the Cas-
pian Sea and made their way through the
6 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
passes of the Tian Shan, through Eastern
Turkestan on into the region of the Gobi
Desert, and continued their march until
they had reached the upper waters of the
Yellow River, or Hoang-ho, and then di-
verged towards the south into the country
which we call China.
To support his views, Prof. Terrien de
Lacouperie points to what he considers a
connection between the written language of
the Akkadians and that of the Chinese.
The former people may be somewhat loosely
defined as the Babylonians, for in the cunei-
form inscriptions the phrase " the land of
Sumer and Akkadia " appears to have de-
noted Babylonia in general. It is true that
there is a curious similiarity between some
of the Akkadian words and those of China
in both sound and sense : that is, if we are
perfectly sure about our reading of the cune-
iform characters.
In certain other matters there is too
a resemblance between the southwestern
parts of Asia and the extreme eastern por-
tion thereof. Some of these likenesses are
detected in the earliest known religious be-
lief of the Chinese and the old Babylonians ;
as well as in social matters and rudimen-
tary science. Susiana was the same as the
Shushan of the Bible. x4nother familiar
name is Elam, and from the time of Darius
WHO AEE THE CHINESE? 7
I, the city Susa, the capital, was the chief
residence of Achajmenian kings. It was
certainly a fruitful and well-watered coun-
try and had access to the Persian Gulf.
There were twelve feudal chiefs or " Pas-
tor Princes " who governed under the su-
preme authority of the king. Now, it is
said that there was a certain ruler over a
portion of what was much later the Empire
of China. This ruler is known as Emperor
Yao, and he is declared to have reigned
from 2085 to 2004 B. C. He is likewise
said to have appointed twelve " Pastors " to
superintend the affairs of his dominion, as
if in imitation of the " Pastor Princes " of
Susiana,
In that latter country the people in an-
cient times worshiped one supreme god
and honored six subordinate deities. In
China, during the time of Yao and for years
after him, the people worshiped Shang-ti,
the one great ruler of heaven, and six
" Honored Ones," although it is impossible
to determine precisely who or what those
six were. When Chinese history became
reasonably established as something firm
upon which to base speculation, that is,
probably with the beginning of the Chou
dynasty (1122 to 225 B. C), certainly some
time before tliat dynasty was overthrown,
the knowledge which the learned men in
8 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
China had of astronomy and medicine was
so nearly like that of the people of Mesa-
potamia, that it is hardly safe to say there
could not have been some communication
between the two peoples in earlier times.
Another curious thing is that the Chinese
a very long time ago saw the probabilities
in the way of development which would
come from a system of internal waterways
and canals to link together the great or
smaller rivers. The similarity between this
scheme and that of Susiana, by which the
people of the latter made their way com-
fortably to the Persian Gulf, is very strik-
ing.
So far as the physical probabilities of the
great migration which has been mentioned
are concerned, there was nothing absolutely
impossible about it. Authenic history tells
us of some remarkable trcls. Consider, for
example, the migration of six hundred
thousand Kalmuk Tartars from Russian
territory to the Chinese borders, about
Avhich De Quincey tells us, and the moving
of a body of people whom we afterwards
called Chinese, from Babylonia to eavstern
Central Asia, is not at all incomprehensible.
Yet there is always the doubt which nat-
urally comes when we think of such a peo-
ple leaving a home in every way so de-
sirable to face the apparent difficulties of
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 9
penetrating the bordering mountains and
into the great unknown that was beyond
those stern and forbidding hills. Another
view which seems to discredit Prof. Ter-
rien de Lacouperie's theory is that within
the time of authentic history, there have not
been in the Caspian Sea region any con-
siderable numbers of people who appear to
be ethnically allied to the Chinese. Of
course the intervening centuries, many
scores of them perhaps, may have obliter-
ated all such resemblance from the few peo-
ple of the same type whom the emigrants
left behind them.
But if we know nothing as to who the
Chinese are ethnologically, we may safely
say that they are not the aboriginal inhabi-
tants of the country which we call China.
They themselves have no such name for
themselves as that. They have a number of
others, liowever, with all of which w^e need
not here burden ourselves. Chung-kwoh,
" the central or middle country or kingdom,"
is the commonest, and that is the one se-
lected by the Republic. From this comes
naturally " men of Chung-kwoh."
As I have explained in another place (see
"The Coming China") this Middle King-
dom did not, I am sure, mean that the
Chinese assumed their country to be the
absolute center of the whole world and all
10 OUR neighbors: the CHINESE
the rest an unfortunate fringe of outside
lands. To their mind the word " middle "
conveyed rather the idea of a fortunate land
whose people were satisfied to preserve a
conservative, central course between the ex-
treme of warlike aggression on the one hand,
and of slothful repose on the other.
To be sure the Chinese did, until a few
years ago, call other peoples " Outside Bar-
barians." This came from a sense of
superiority to the hordes of savages who sur-
rounded them on all sides except the south.
In that direction there were people whom
the Chinese might have regarded as their
equals, had it not been that the Himalaya
Mountains made an almost impassable bar-
rier so that there was for ages no intercourse.
As far as including the peoples of Europe
in the list of " Outer Barbarians," one can
hardly wonder at the Chinese doing so after
reading of the way the first of those
strangers behaved, when intercourse be-
tween the Chinese and Europeans was re-
sumed in the fifteenth century, after having
been interrupted for more than five hundred
years.
The Chinese used to take great pride in
calling themselves " Sons of Han," or " Men
of T'ang." The first of these favorite ti-
tles came from the fact tliat Liu P'ang as-
cended the throne in B. C. 206, taking for
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 11
himself the title Kao Ti, " August Emperor,"
and gave his dynasty, which he then es-
tablished, the name of Han, from the small
state in the greater district of Shensi over
which he had ruled, and the river of the
same name near which he was born. As the
Han may properly be considered the first
national dynasty, it is natural that the peo-
ple should have taken pride in calling them-
selves " Sons of Han." The people of the
great southern province, Kwan-tung — we
call it Canton — were an exception, for they
always refused to speak of themselves in
that way.
Eight centuries later another famous
dynasty ruled over China. It was the
T'ang and it lasted for two hundred and
eighty-nine years, from G18 to 907 A. D.. Its
first emperors were statesmen and generals
of marked ability and the Chinese opinion
of that group of sovereigns is shown by the
fact that one of the names they sometimes
call themselves by was " The men of T'ang."
I do not know that our Chinese neighbors
will discard those patriotic and honorable
names, now that they have so effectually
put away all tilings of the past ; yet I rather
hope they will not.
Giving up as an unsatisfactory and un-
necessary task, the effort to establish the
primary origin of the Chinese, we seem to
12 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
be safe in saying that before tbey settled
down into something like permanent occu-
pation of the modern province Shensi, they
were a nomadic people. I think it is not
at all unreasonable to point to the roofs of
Chinese houses as an indication, if not a
proof, that they borrowed the form which
their tents took. If a large square tent is
supported by poles at the four corners, the
material will droop from the poles to the
center of each side and until at the middle
of the side it begins to rise again towards
the next post. That sharp upward turn at
the corners and the sag along the sides is
called a " catenary curve," and it is an un-
mistakable feature of all Chinese permanent
structures. ^ The similarity between the
eaves of a Chinese building and the sag of
a tent, can hardly be accounted for in any
other way.
Another indication of the nomadic life
of the Chinese in absolutely prehistoric
times, is the fact that among the most primi-
tive ideographs of their written language,
there are some which fully warrant the as-
sumption that they had many sheep and
cattle. Later ideographs, chronologically,
indicate that the Chinese were agricultur-
ists. Inasmuch as flocks of sheep and herds
of cattle have been almost unknown in
China proper for centuries, the story told
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 13
by the earliest ideographs and the evolution
of the agricultural ones, is more than inter-
esting.
An ideograph, it may be explained, is a
written symbol, usually derived from a pic-
ture of a concrete object, which contains in
itself a complete idea. Of course, as learn-
ing advances, these ideographs are devised
to convey abstract ideas. But the ideo-
graph always stands as the very antithesis
of an alphabetic language. It is probably
true that the use of those ideographs served
to retard the development of the Chinese
beyond a certain point. This, however, is a
subject to which we must return in a later
chapter.
Even if the Chinese nomads did traverse
the almost uninhabited regions of Western
Central Asia, where there Avas practically
nobody to oppose their progress, we may be
quite sure that when they had crossed the
mountains and desert, and emerged into the
province of Kansuh they promptly found
the inhabitants ready to fight with them in
defense of their homes. For the Chinese
were not the first inhabitants of that coun-
try. " Aborigines " is a word that is loosely
used, and it is impossible to say that the
people whom the Chinese found in Shensi
wore absolutely aborigines. That province
of Shensi is just west of the great bend of
14 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
the Yellow River which is here forced by
the Peling Mountains to turn sharply to
the east after coming down in an almost
straight course from the Mongolian fron-
tier and the Altai Shan.
The Chinese conquered the aborigines, it
is true, but they were rarely guilty of a di-
rect effort to exterminate on a wholesale
scale, and they probably remained quietly
in Shensi for some time. Then they pushed
themselves farther and farther south and
west; but they were strangely slow in get-
ting into the east and southeast or the rich
coast provinces. Eventually, however, they
became masters of China: that is the eight-
een provinces of what the peoi)le meant when
they spoke of Chung-kwoh; it did not for-
merly include Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet,
and the outlying possessions toward the
west and northwest. I do not know if the
name is now used inclusively or not; but I
suppose it is.
At any rate when the famous Chinese his-
torian Sz-ma Ts'ien appeared, in the first
century B. C, he declared that during the
later years of the Chou Dynasty, or from
827 to 255 B. C, the records of his country
become reliable, and his opinion has been
confirmed by some bamboo slips bearing in-
cised writing — done with a style — that
were found in A. D. 284 in the grave of a
WHO ARE THE CHINESE? 15
feudal chief who had lived in North China
during the fourth century B. C. In Sz-ma
Ts'ien's time, the eighteen provinces were
not organized as they were subsequently, but
the Chinese State had been firmly estab-
lished.
CHAPTER II
TEE BEPUBLIC OF CHINA
ALTHOUGH we have been accustomed,
and quite properly, to think of China
as the oldest continuous imperial govern-
ment in the world, as a matter of fact the
united China proper, that is the eighteen
provinces which are considered when a true
Chinese speaks of the Middle Kingdom, be-
came a united State only about two thou-
sand years ago. The great Emperor Shih
Hwang Ti (often spoken and written of
as Ch'in Hsih Huang) effected the union
of the various feudal states that had main-
tained a sort of independence until that
time. He then divided the country into
thirty-six provinces and to each he appointed
three high rank officials to administer the
affairs of that particular province. The of-
ficials were held to be directly responsible
to the emperor himself, and the system then
established continued without material
change until the overthrow of the Manchu
dynasty which abdicated February 12, 1912.
This statement in no way impugns that
which has been made by so many writers
as to the great age and continuity of the
16
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 17
Chinese nation. Its history is remarkable
and for many reasons. Even if a wonderful
and radical change has recently taken place
in the form of government, that does not
break the sequence of the historical record.
There were other great States which rivaled
China in the matter of antiquity: Egypt,
Babylonia, Assyria, and later Rome, for ex-
ample. They were created by remarkable
men ; they were for a time contemporaneous
with China ; they reached the zenith of their
development in extent and power; but they
passed away while China continued to exist,
and still exists with a new lease of strength
and possibilities which promises well for the
future.
If a republic in form of government and
in being representative of the whole people
is something entirely new in China, it can-
not be truthfully said that the idea in cer-
tain senses is altogether an unknown one to
the Chinese. The people of that land have
always been surprisingly democratic in some
respects, and all authorities agree in say-
ing that wliile the Chinese gave little heed
to what was happening on and around the
throne at tlie capital — wherever that might
be for the moment, — they insisted upon hav-
ing more than a merely feeble voice as to
how the affairs of their own province, city,
or village should be administered. Thev
18 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
did not actually demand popular repre-
sentation in the way that is coming to them
now, but they long ago showed a spirit which
— when properly trained and fairly con-
trolled — will probably fit them to exercise
republican rights in a surprisingly satis-
factory manner.
Socialism has never attained such popu-
larity as to make it a prominent factor in
the spirit of the Chinese people or in their
institutions; yet there are several recorded
instances of a disposition on the part of
some fairly strong men in China to give to
the people more consideration than they
had. The most conspicuous example of
this sort of socialism, was that proposed by
Wan g An-shih during the reign of Emperor
'Shen'lDsung (Chin Tsong II, A. D. 1068 to
1086) of the great Sung dynasty.
That Emperor himself was so much im-
pressed with what this man suggested that
he did try to put the radical ideas into prac-
tise. The principal features of this reform
were. First : Taxes to be paid in produce and
manufactures; the surplus of produce and
commodities to be purchased by the Govern-
ment. They were then to be sent to those
parts of the Empire where there was a de-
mand and sold for a reasonable profit. The
direct intention of this scheme was to do
away with middlemen and unscrupulous
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 19
merchants. Second: the Government was
to advance money to the farmers who had no
means or insufficient capital; these loans
to be repaid after the harvest. The rate of
interest on such advances was to be two per
cent, per month. This, of course, seems to
us usurious ; but it should be borne in mind
that money sharks in China were then, as
they are likely to be now, extorting from
fifty to two hundred per cent, from any un-
fortunate farmer who fell into their clutches.
Third: conscription was to be introduced.
The Empire was to be divided into districts
according to families, and each family with
more than one son was to give one for mili-
tary service. In times of peace those men
were to pursue their customary avocation;
but when war broke out they were to be
called to the colors and must be ready to go
at once to the seat of war. Fourth: until
the time of An-shih all public works had
been constructed by compulsory labor. It
was now proposed to levy an income tax
upon each family in order to provide funds
for these public works. Of all the reforms
this is said to have met with the most vio-
lent opposition. The experiment was tried
for a time, but it did not prove successful
and before long the laws promulgated by the
Emperor to carry into effect tlie proj)osed
reforms were annulled. It will be remem-
20 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
bered that Kang Yu-wei, as adviser of the
late Emperor Kwang Hsii, advocated some-
what similar reform and secured a favorable
hearing from his imperial patron. If he
had not managed to get out of the country
he would have been executed, as were so
many of his friends, by the great Empress
Dowager.
The flag which has been adopted by the
Chinese Republic itself indicates how far
from their past the new rulers at least hope
they have gone. The old flag was an elon-
gated triangle, called technically a pennant,
its base towards the staff, yellow in color,
with a notched or saw-tooth edge, and in the
center a curving, twisting, snarling dragon.
It was typical in every way. The color
stood for the rulers, the hated Manchus ; the
edge typified the rough attitude that the
Manchu Government adopted towards all
people in every direction; the dragon was
peculiarly Chinese, breathing forth fire to
consume whatever stood before it. It was
not a pretty banner, no matter how we con-
sider it : in shape, color, or design ; and as a
whole it was as blatant as the threats which'
the Peking Government used to make, for
there never was one of them that the au-
thorities could enforce.
The new flag is appropriate in form, for
it is that which has been adopted conven-
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 21
tionally by all nations as an ensign, and the
design is emblematic. There is just a little
imitation of the Star Spangled Banner, be-
cause the five stripes indicate a union of the
many principal factors in the new state, as
do the thirteen stripes in our flag stand
for the thirteen original colonies which
banded themselves together to form the
United States of America.
But the five factors in the Chinese Ee-
public are not distinct yet co-ordinate states.
They tell us that the Chinese Empire was
and the Chinese Republic is a coalition of
several peoples who are all of Mongoloid
type. To the topmost stripe of the flag the
Chinese themselves have laid claim, thus as-
suming precedence over the Manchus; there-
fore the red stripe stands for the 407,253,000
people of the eighteen provinces of China
proper. It is rather strange that they
should have chosen this color for them-
selves, because they are not really a martial
people and red is the recognized sign of the
god of war. The next stripe from the top
is yellow and it is to represent the 16,000,-
000 people of Manchuria. The pale blue
color of the next lower stripe is for the
2,600,000 inhabitants of :Mongolia. The
next stripe, white, is for the 6,500,000 people
of Tibet, while the black stripe at the bot-
tom is for the 1,200,000 peoples of Chinese
22 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Turkestan, etc., nearly all of whom are Ma-
hometans.
I have taken my figures from the last edi-
tion of the Statesman's Year Book, but I
entirely agree with the Hon. W. W. Rock-
hill, who is now our Ambassador to Turkey,
but who was for several years Minister to
China, and before that a great traveler
throughout the Chinese Empire. Mr.
Rockhill thinks that the population of
China proper is probably less than 270,000,-
000 at the present time. I add that my own
opinion is that when a proper census is
taken of the Chinese Republic in extenso (if
that time ever comes) it will be found that
the 433,553,030 shrinks by much more than
one hundred millions; and this opinion has
been confirmed by several Europeans, gen-
erally Germans or Frenchmen, who have re-
cently had better opportunity for travel in
the interior of China than I. Even so, in
the matter of population the Chinese Re-
public at once takes a prominent place in
the world, and the character of the popula-
tion is high.
When we come to areas, it is easier to tell
more precisely what the extent of the
Chinese Republic is, because geographical
divisions are more readily defined and meas-
ured than is population. The eighteen
provinces of China proper have an area,
THE EEPUBLIC OF CHINA 23
estimated it is true, as is the case with all
other divisions, yet fairly exact, of 1,532,-
420 square miles, Manchuria 303,610, Mon-
golia 1,367,600, Tibet 463,200, Chinese
Turkestan, etc., 550,340, a grand total of
4,277,170; as against that of the United
States including all outlying possessions of
3,699,076 square miles. So that the newest
Republic in size is decidedly the largest in
the world.
China's right to include all of Manchuria
is disputed by Russia and Japan ; and Rus-
sia would certainly declare that the Chinese
Republic has little or nothing to say about
Mongolia, and little, if anything, about
Eastern Turkestan, etc., yet it is to be hoped
that when the great Powers of the world
have followed the example of the United
States in recognizing the Republic of China
and have shown a disposition to admit and
uphold her lawful claims, all of these out-
lying portions may be restored absolutely.
Not only so, but there Avill probably be
evinced a willingness to restore such places
as Weihaiwei, Kiaochau (Tsintau), and
perhaps others that are not of much use or
benefit to the European Powers that have
secured possession of them.
People of the United States are naturally
inclined to judge of our Chinese neiglibors
by the coolies, laundrymen, house servants,
24 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
shop-keepers, and others who are conspicu-
ous; and because of the preponderance of
the first two classes to set their standard
of Chinese intelligence at a rather low point.
This is most unfair. I do not mean to
intimate that our Chinese neighbors are
conspicuous for education, but there are
really very few Chinese, above the peasant
class, who cannot read and write a little.
Their ideographic language makes it possi-
ble for a person to learn the few score, or
possibly few hundreds, characters that are
useful in his particular trade, without his
bothering himself to learn a great number
of those which specifically pertain to some
other occupation. The market gardener
knows how to make the symbols that stand
for his wares ; the laundryman has command
of his own special vocabulary, and so with
others. In a certain sense the same limita-
tion exists among our own lower classes,
whose vocabulary it will be found is aston-
ishingly limited; and even people who are
properly credited with a fair education do
not as a rule make use of more than a few
thousand words.
It would take very much more space than
is at my command to give a complete descrip-
tion of the natural features of the Great
Eepublic of China. Every phase of natural
scenery is to be found in some portion or
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 25
another thereof. Along the eastern coast
there are smiling valleys in which the culti-
vated fields come down so far that their
protecting dikes are lapped by the sea
waves; or there are stretches of clear sandy
beach, where bathing is to be enjoyed to the
fullest, or there are bold, rocky headlands
that stand as a menace to the unwary navi-
gator or as protecting giants, according as
one is disposed to look upon them.
Back from the coast in the innumerable
river valleys, agriculture of every kind is
carried on with an incisiveness which makes
the beholder marvel that man, with the ap-
parently inadequate accessories which the
Chinese agriculturalist possesses, can have
done so much. Yet it has to be admitted
that when the crops are measured by pounds
or bushels or whatever the standard may be,
and the value computed by prices the farmer
receives, the return is absurdly inadequate.
There ought to be some great missionary
work done among the agricultural classes
of China to enable them to get nearer one
hundred cents value for each dollar's worth
of labor, seed, and fertilizer that they put
into their fields than they now secure. But
it will be a long and discouraging task,
because the conservatism of the Chinese
peasant is almost adamantine. To change
from the time-honored ways of his fore-
26 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
fathers will seem to him both useless and
actually dishonorable. Yet this is only one
of the changes that must come to Republican
China.
In picturesqueness the river valleys of
China need fear no comparison with the
rest of the world. Their lower reaches will
seem tame, because they flow through such
wide stretches of flat country, yet this is
markedly true of the Yang-tze only. The
southernmost river of some importance, is
the White River that flows past Canton
and empties into the bay between Hong-
kong and Macao at Boca Tigres, " The
Tiger's Mouth." This is just below
Whampoa, which place itself offers much of
interest both historically and scenically ; as
soon as one enters the river it recalls the
episodes of a century ago, when Europe was
insisting upon the right to trade and to trade
as contributed most to the pockets of
British and other alien subjects. The his-
tory will arouse varying sensations accord-
ing to the sentiments of the traveler.
Thence up that same river, which bears
many Chinese names, to the head of naviga-
tion there is abundance of that which is
picturesque in every way.
As it is practically impossible to ascend
the great Yang-tze River from mouth to
source, it is well now that we are in the
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 27
region where it begins, to pass from the
headwaters of the White Kiver into the
mountains of Tibet. It will be noticed that
this, the greatest river of Asia, as well as
the Mekong that flows down into the Shan
States and French Indo-China, are very
neighborly, and furthermore that the great
Brahmaputra, is not far away.
In that great world of mountains, the
extreme eastern portion of the Himalayas,
there is everything that the seeker after a
mingling of the picturesque with a spice of
danger can ask. The Imperial Government
of China never did succeed in establishing
firmly its rule so as to make traveling per-
fectly secure for the explorer in this region,
and fhe Republic will probably have a good
deal to do before it can accomplish that
same desired end. Still it need not be fatal
'' to go there and there remains something
for the explorer yet to do, besides enjoying
mountain scenery that is wonderful.
If one were to combine the Chinese rec-
ords of the Hoang-ho, we call it the Yellow
River, with the accounts that interested and
observing strangers have given us, it would
be a long and pathetic story. Most properly
have the Chinese people given to that way-
ward river the pseudonym which means
" China's Sorrow," because neither wars nor
oppressions have begun to bring a tithe of
28 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
the sorrow that the river has caused the
people from time almost immemorial. Its
name " Yellow " is well chosen because of
the muddy color of the water ; but what does
that earthy tint imply?
Follow up the stream from its present
mouth on the Gulf of Chihli and note the
bare hills, and then the bare mountains.
Their sides are now scarcely more than
naked rocks; yet there was a time far back
in history when those hills and mountains
were covered with dense forests. Had
there been a glimmer of the science of forest
conservation in those remote ages, there
would be none of those terrible tales of
" China's Sorrow " sweeping to death a mil-
lion or more people in one flood. The
money value of the damage wrought by the
river cannot be computed. But the sense-
less destruction of forests has always been
the greatest curse of the Chinese people, and
nothing is being done even now to compel
them to mend their ways.
After rivers, one naturally thinks of
lakes. Of these there are no great ones in
any part of the Republic. The Chinese
themselves admire almost extravagantly
what is called the Poyang Lake, but it is
really nothing more than the spreading out
of the Yang-tze River into a great depres-
sion south of the river and near the city
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA 29
of Hankow. Yet this lake figures largely
in art and poetry.
Scattered all over the Republic there are
many small mountain tarns, that would be
popular and attractive were it not for the
naked hills which surround them. What
the future may bring forth it is hazardous
to say, but it is possible that as the rule of
authority extends and facilities for travel-
ing in the interior become greater, some
of these mountain lakes may become as pop-
ular summer resorts as are several of the
Japanese lakes.
CHAPTER III
MYTHS ABOUT CREATION AND OTHER
THINGS
FUH-HI is said to have been tlie first
earthly sovereign who ruled in any
part of the domain that we call China. His
accession is placed at some time between
3,322 to 2,852 B. C, and with him com-
mences the period which the Chinese know
by the title of " The Time of Higkest An-
tiquity." Yet before Fuh-hi back to the
creation of heaven and earth, there was an
interval of at least five hundred thousand
years. Because of a similarity in the sound
of that first earthly sovereign's name
" Fuh " with the name which the Chinese
give to Buddha, " Fuh " or " Foh," some
Chinese declare that they were one and the
same person, but it is needless to say this
confusion is without a semblance of founda-
tion.
There are innumerable myths and legends
connected with the creation to be found in
Chinese literature. This is just what we
should be lead to expect of a people so in-
tensely superstitious as practically all of
the Chinese were, and as many of them are
30
MYTHS 31
even now. Yet not all of them were so
childishly superstitious. One of the best
and cleverest of their historians, Yang Tse
who is often quoted bv the earliest Ameri-
can and European writers about China, de-
clared : " Who knows the affairs of remote
antiquity, since no authentic records have
come down to us? He who examines those
stories will find it difficult to believe them,
and careful scrutiny will convince him that
they are without foundation. In the
primeval ages no historical records were
kept. Why then, since the ancient books
that described those times were burned by
Tsin, should we misrepresent those remote
ages, and satisfy ourselves with vague
fables? However, as everything except
Heaven and Earth must have had a cause,
it is clear that they have always existed,
and that cause produced all sorts of men
and beings, and endowed them with their
various qualities. But it must have been
man who in the beginning produced all
things on earth, and who may therefore be
viewed as the lord and from whom rulers
derived their dignities."
The ordinary Chinese philosophers of
ancient times felt called upon to advance
some sort of theory as to the creation of the
world. Having no idea of a Supremo God,
by whom all things were created, they de-
32 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
vised a theory which satisfied them and
those who listened to them, or afterwards
read their writings. According to this the-
ory there were two great and mysterious
principles in nature, the male and the fe-
male or as they called them " The Yang,"
which was strong or hard, and " The Yin,"
which was weak or soft. These produced
heaven and earth in very much the same way
as children are born to human parents, and
afterwards all things were similarly pro-
duced.
One of those philosophers explained this
theory concisely thus : Keason produced
one; one produced two; two produced
three ; three produced all things. But what
was Keason? Some give it the name of
Tae-keih; but this is not at all satisfactory
for it means simply " Great Power." By
this scheme of creation, then, heaven and
earth were separated in a measure; yet all
was chaos. Then appeared Pwanku or
P'au Ku, who was the first inhabitant of
this earth. One legendary explanation of
this name is interesting and ingenious:
Pwan means a " basin," referring to the
shell of an eri;g; Ku means " solid or to se-
cure," intending to show how the first man
Pwanku was hatched from the chaos by the
dual powers, and then settled and exhibited
the arrangement of the causes which pro-
MYTHS 33
duced him. Pwanku set himself to the task
of giving form to the heavens and the earth.
With a mighty chisel and mallet he split
off and fashioned the great masses of
granite that surrounded him. Through
some of the openings thus made, the sun,
moon, and stars appeared. Always asso-
ciated with him in pictorial art are his com-
panions, the dragon, the phoenix, and the
tortoise; the unicorn is sometimes added,
but no explanation of their creation or rea-
son for their being is given. Pwanku lab-
ored for eighteen thousand years, and little
by little his work developed while he him-
self increased in stature. He grew six feet
each day until his work was finished, when
he died.
" His head became mountains, his breath
wind and clouds, and his voice thunder ; his
limbs were changed into the four poles, his
veins into rivers, the sinews into the undula-
tions of the earth's surface, and his flesh
into fields; his beard, like Berenice's hair,
was turned into stars, his skin and hair into
herbs and trees, and his teeth, bones, and
marrow into metals, rocks, and precious
stones; his dropping sweat increased to rain,
and lastly {nascitur ridiculus m'lis) the in-
sects which stuck to his body were trans-
formed into people I '' *
* The Middle Kingdom, S. Wells Williams.
34 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
It is a marvelous pity that Pwanku's
tortoise did not survive at least until men
had developed the art of writing, for on the
creature's thick upper shell was written —
so it is declared — the history of the world
up to that time; but the priceless record
was lost forever!
It will be noticed that lightning is not
mentioned in this account. That is because
the fire from heaven and the thunder were
not associated as related phenomena, until
long after the Chinese had made great ad-
vance in culture. The anger of the celestial
beings was displayed by that fire from
heaven, but that it caused the thunder did
not at first occur to those simple people.
When Pwanku's task was finished there
came three mythological personages, who
are called, respectively, the Celestial, the
Terrestrial, and the Human Sovereigns.
They were of gigantic form and are asso-
ciated in a curious trinity of persons, heav-
enly, earthly, human. Each one lived for
eighteen thousand years. In this wonder-
ful cosmogony there appeared, after the
three sovereigns had passed away, two other
monarchs who were almost as famous, and
apparently they were much more beneficent
to ordinary mortals, that is, later human
beings.
MYTHS 35
The first of this trinity was Yu-chau,
which means " having a nest " because he
taught the numerous progeny of his ances-
tors to build nests. Whether this means lit-
erally that the remote ancestors of the Chi-
nese were tree-dwellers, like the Indians on
the Orinoco River of South America, and
elsewhere in the world, or is used figura-
tively, it is impossible to say ; but probably
it is simply a fanciful way of saying that the
people from thenceforth dwelt in something
like habitations, having previously lived in
caves, when they did not sleep in the open.
The second of those monarchs, Sui-jin, or
" fire-man " discovered that by rubbing two
pieces of dried wood together he produced
fire. This blessed Promethean gift was of
inestimable benefit to mankind, who had
until then been compelled to eat all food
raw. Flesh and certain vegetables were
now properly cooked and the people were
greatly delighted at this wonderful improve-
ment.
The people had not yet any mode of writ-
ing or keeping accounts. Sui-jin therefore
took cords of different colors or materials
in which he tied knots that served him as
memoranda for keeping some of his records.
We recognize in this the quipus of South
AuK^'ica. I>3' developing this ingenious
36 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
process, people eventually became expert in
imparting information to distant friends.
Sui-jin also erected a public assembly ball
wberein the people were given instruction
in various matters, and by thus associating
together they advanced in culture. The
Chinese records of these myths are so
phrased as to lead us to suppose the people
were all in one great community ; this, how-
ever, is a detail which demands neither con-
firmation nor refutation. There are so
many other myths and legends which de-
serve at least a little attention, that we must
pass on from those relating to Creation.
Fuh-hi, who was mentioned at the open-
ing of this chapter, is given rank and dig-
nity of being called " the first of the Five
Emperors," who appeared as the mist
partially blew away when the purely my-
thological era had ended. That Fuh-hi is
also given the honor of having been the
founder of the Chinese Empire. He reigned
in Shensi from 2,852 to 2,C52 B. C, and
his capital was Hwa-sen. He must have
been something of a philosopher as well as
a monarch. In his time and for many cen-
turies afterwards, the fact of being Emperor
or ruler, whether it was of a petty princi-
pality or the empire which gradually de-
veloped, meant that the sovereign was also
a soldier, for it was expected that he should
MYTHS 37
lead his people in war or lie could not govern
them properly in peace.
Had this principle been lived up to con-
stantly by the later Chinese, they might
have been able to make a better fight than
they did against the Tartars, — Mongols and
Manchus. Fuh-hi was interested in study-
ing the course of Nature, the seeming regu-
larity of the recurring seasons inspired him
with a desire to trace the causes of her great
revolution. He therefore invented a system
of lines, one long and two short, which in
combination gave eight trigrams, or Kwa,
each one of which represents a natural ob-
ject, Heaven, the Sky, Water collected in
marsh or lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water
in clouds, rain, springs, streams, and also
the Moon, Hills or Mountains, and the
Earth.
They also denote attributes arbitrarily
arranged according to the natural object :
Strength, Power; Pleasure, Satisfaction;
Brightness, Elegance; Moving Power, Flex-
ibility; Peril, Difficulty; Resting; Caprici-
ousness, Submission. They stand, too, for
the eight cardinal points of the compass ac-
cording to Chinese ideas: south, southeast,
east, northeast, southwest, west, northwest,
and north. They likewise furnish the
state and position, at any time or place,
of the two-fold division of the one primor-
38 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
dial kij or "Air." Thus they become the
source whence the system of Fung-shui is
derived.
Fung-shui literally means " Wind and
Water," and is the foundation of a wonder-
ful geomancy, which contained most of the
Chinese science and explained, in an un-
satisfactory way, their superstition. Al-
though based upon Fuh-hi's kiva, yet this
Fung-shui was not systematized until the
twelfth century of our era; after that it
extended its influence and continuity until
very recent times. It would be impossible
to discuss Fung-shui thoroughly, unless one
entire volume were devoted to the subject.
Its most important influence, so far as for-
eigners were concerned, was that it de-
termined the choice of a burial place, being
supposed to be connected with the past, pres-
ent, and future.
A grave having been located by the Fung-
shui Siensang, " Wind and Water Doctor,"
its removal or any interference with it
would entail disaster; hence it was Fung-
shui that so often stood as an obstruction
to the building of railways, opening of
mines, and many other industrial improve-
ments. With the change that has taken
place in education and habit of thought,
the influence of Fung-shui has been pretty
nearly relegated to oblivion; although in
MYTHS 39
remote districts it is still troublesome some-
times; and the determination of a burial
place is even now determined by the Fung-
shui Siensang.
Myth attributes to Fuh-hi many other
beneficial things, and after living some two
hundred years, he died greatly regretted.
It is not the purpose here to distinguish
between fact and fiction because of the
former there is practically none. Whether
it was Fuh-hi, or Hwang-ti, who came after
him, or Tsang-kieh, who is alleged to have
flourished about 2700 B. C, that invented
writing, does not much matter. The art
was certainly of great antiquity, and the
myth attached to it says that it came from
the last mentioned personage noticing the
markings on the shell of a tortoise. By
similar lines and then imitating common
objects in nature, symbols to represent ideas
were devised. It will be noted that in this
myth there seems to be a survival of that
connected with Pwan-ku's attendant tor-
toise.
Legend attributes to Ilwang-ti the first
use of brick in architecture, building of
villages and cities, and the establishing of
the people in fixed centers, about which they
were commanded and taught to cultivate
the soil; in his time the greatest order is
said to have prevailed, after he had con-
40 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
quered the forces of his predecessor Shin-
nung. Chinese historians do not lay much
stress upon this apparent rebellion if such
it was. Hwang-ti is said to have built an
observatory and to have corrected the cal-
endar; to have invented arms, carts, boats,
water-clocks, chariots, and an ingenious
musical instrument. He also introduced
coined money and fixed the standards of
weights and measures.
His Empress was likewise a remarkable
personage, for legend attributes to her the
rearing of silk worms, reeling and spinning
their floss, and weaving it into material
which was used for elegant robes. Another
myth tells us that Hwang-ti's son and suc-
cessor, Shan-haou, saw a phoenix and ad-
mired it so much that he commanded all
officials to have the effigy of that bird em-
broidered on their robes of state. This cus-
tom survived until the year 1912.
Myths innumerable gather round the
heavenly bodies. The sun, moon, and plan-
ets were believed to exert great influence
upon this earth, its inhabitants, and all its
growth ; therefore change in the color or gen-
eral appearance of any one was pregnant
with meaning. Any marked change in the
appearance of the Sun presaged misfortune
to the State or its head; such as revolts,
near Canton
MYTHS 41
floods, famines, or the death of the Emperor.
If the Moon looked unusually red or seemed
to be too pale, there were bad times ahead
for ordinary men.
Symbolism was inevitably connected with
these ideas, and hence we find that a raven
drawn within a circle stood for the Sun;
while a rabbit standing on its hind legs and
grasping in its forepaws a long pestle with
which it pounded rice in a mortar to clean
it of the hull and coarse skin, stood for the
Moon. But there was another symbol for
Luna and that was a three-legged toad.
This myth came from a legend of a beauty
of mythical times whose name was Chang-
ngo. It is said that she, like so many other
beautiful women, was loath to lose her
beauty and to pass away in death. There-
fore she procured from a magician some
of " the liquor of immortality " which she
drank, and was immediately carried up to
the moon, where she was transformed into
a toad. The Chinese declare that the out-
line of the toad may be traced on the face
of the Moon when she is at her full. This
toad — ^ really the beauty for whom it stood
— is specially worshiped at the time of tlie
full moon in mid-autumn and at that time
cakes of a particular kind are sold. This
myth with many others has been trans-
42 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
ferred to Japan where they flourish quite
as vigorously as ever they did in the land
of their origin.
Every one of the constellations has its
own peculiar symbolism, and there is an em-
peror to rule over all these conspicuous
groups of stars. This celestial government
is as completely organized as any upon
earth, with empresses, an heir apparent, (al-
though how he succeeds, since immortality
is one of the attributes of those heavenly
creatures, is not clear), subordinate princes
and princesses, a court circle, tribunals, etc.
There is one pretty, yet rather sad, myth
connected with the Milky Way, that is ex-
ceedingly popular in both China and Japan,
It is called " The Herdsman and the Weaver
Girl."
The girl was the daughter of the Sun-god,
and she was so remarkably diligent with
her loom that her father grew worried about
her. He concluded that matrimony would
divert her mind from her incessant task,
and so he arranged a marriage with a neigh-
bor who herded cattle on the bank of " The
Silvery Stream of Heaven." The story is
found in many books, yet the Chinese and
the Japanese versions vary but little. Ac-
cording to one version the Weaving Girl was
so constantly kept employed in making gar-
ments for the offspring of the Emperor of
MYTHS 43
Heaven — in other words, Ood — that she
had no leisure to attend to the adornment
of her person. At last, however, God, tak-
ing compassion on her loneliness, gave her
in marriage to the Herdsman who dwelt on
the opposite side of the river. Then the
woman began to grow remiss in her work.
The angry Emperor of Heaven then com-
pelled her to re-cross the river, and at the
same time he forbade her husband to visit
her oftener than once a year. The Herds-
man is the bright star in the constellation
Aquila. The Weaving Girl is the similar
star in Vega. They dwell on the opposite
sides of the " Celestial River," or the Milky
Way, and they can never meet except on the
seventh night of the seventh moon, a night
which is held sacred to them.
Another version represents the pair as
mortals, who were wedded at the early ages
of fifteen and twelve, and who died at the
ages of a hundred and three and ninety-
nine respectively. After death, their spirits
flew up to the sky, where the supreme Deity
bathed daily in the Celestial River. No
mortals might pollute it by their touch, ex-
cept on the seventh day of the seventh moon,
when the Deity, instead of bathing, went to
listen to the chanting of the Buddhist Scrip-
tures. The seventh moon, of course, re-
ferred to the old Lunar Calendar. That is
44 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
to say, the time when the pair are reunited
comes toward the end of summer and it
will be noticed that the stars which repre-
sent them are fairly close together and
touching, as one may say, the banks of the
Heavenly stream.
CHAPTER IV
CHINESE LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE
IT will have been inferred from what was
already written in the preceding chap-
ters, that the literature of the Empire, and
perhaps of a period before that Empire was
organized, constitutes a considerable legacy
to which the new Republic has fallen heir.
Yet if the educational, technical, industrial,
political, and many other reforms are car-
ried out, the value of that legacy will be
greatly impaired if we do not wish to say
destroyed altogether.
Indeed there are not wanting some
Chinese of the " advanced thinker " type
who say frankly that when new China has
actually gained the position she deserves
and is once firmly planted on her own feet,
there will be little cause for regret were the
act of Chi Hwang-ti ("The First Em-
peror"') repeated so far as most of the so-
called " Classics " are concerned. To un-
derstand this allusion, a little bit of inter-
esting history must be introduced here.
During tlie time of tlie Chou Dynasty (1122
to 2^)T) r>. C.) China was in fact a group of
45
46 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
feudal states very loosely joined together,
and the " Emperor " was in reality only the
head of that state which, for the time be-
ing, was the most powerful in martial
ability.
In the western section of the relatively
small area then immediately connected with
the Chinese people was a clan, the Tsin, who
had long been powerful. They lived in
what is now the great province of Shensi,
but their authority extended northward into
Kansuh, southward in Sz-chuan, perhaps be-
yond the Yang-tze Eiver, and westward al-
most indefinitely. They occupied about
one-fifth of the whole country that could
then have been looked upon as the realm of
China, and the number of the clansmen
probably amounted to one-tenth of the
whole population of China.
One of these Tsin chiefs had the audacity
to make arrogant demands upon the impe-
rial chief of tlie feudal congerie, and backed
up his demands by entering what may be
called the Imperial Domain, defeating the
troops of him wliom he should have acknowl-
edged as his master. This master was
Tung-Chau Kiun, 314 to 255 B. C, the last
of the Chau Dynasty. If we say that a
" rebellion " is an unsuccessful revolt
against constituted national authority,
while revolution is the successful revolt, we
LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 47
must not speak of the act of tliat audacious
subject as rebellion.
But by whatever name we call his act,
it is certain that Chausiang Wang, 255 to
250 B. C, was successful, and made him-
self master of the whole empire, as it was
then constituted. lie did not actually as-
sume the title of Emperor, although his
name appears in the list of Chinese sov-
ereigns; but his son Chwangsiang Wang,
249 to 246 B. C, did so. All of the blood
royal of the Chau Dynasty who could be
found, whether adult or child, male or fe-
male, were butchered by Chwangsiang's
troops most ruthlessly; and the process of
subduing all the rest of the states in the
congerie was carried on effectively, until
he was supreme.
He then took for himself the title of Chi
Hwangti, and established a dynasty which
he called the Tsin. It is likewise known as
the Ch'in, and some writers declare that
from this word came the name China.
This is because the first people of the West
who knew anything about the Chinese,
spoke of them — we are told — as " people
of tlio land of Ch'in." It is not difficult
to believe that this word would readily be-
come " Cliina.'' As the Italians say, se non
(' vera, c hoi trovato, or " if it is not true it
is cleverlv invented."
48 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
This monarch, who has been called the
Napoleon of China (although to the minds
of many that is a distinction which cuts
two ways ! ) was really a remarkable man in
many ways, and that the people generally
looked upon him as such is evident from the
fact that later generations took pride in
calling themselves " Men of Tsin." But
there were, and there are, good Chinese who
execrate his name because he presumed to
arrogate to himself an equality w^ith the
three great Emperors of the Mythical
Period, Fuh-hi, Shin-nung, and Hwang-ti,
to w^hom are assigned the years from 2852
to 2597 B. C.
Chi Hwangti was certainly a vain man.
His vanity, stimulated by the advice of his
Prime Minister, Li-szu, made him wish to
destroy all records of every kind that had
been written prior to his own time. By do-
ing this he hoped to compel posterity to
regard himself as the very first Emperor of
the Chinese people. The Prime Minister
had reported to his master that the influence
of the scholars was pernicious and their
writings merely contributed to cause con-
fusion. Hwang-ti's special animosity was
directed against the writings of Confucius
and Mencius, explanatory of the Shu-king,
which will be described presently, because
that work dealt with the feudal states of
LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 49
China, whose remembrance the new " First
Emperor," wished to blot out absolutely.
But the real reason for the unpopularity
of the literati was that they constituted the
conservative element of the populace and
were always ready to oppose all efforts at re-
form which the Emperor might wish to in-
stitute. In this aspect of the literary class,
history repeated itself very emphatically in
the twentieth century, for it was the lit-
erary men and the Manchus who tried to
thwart the efforts of the late Emperor
Kwang rtsii and those of his aunt, the great
Empress Dowager, when they were tr^^ing
to make China a factor in the world's af-
fairs. It will now be understood what is
meant by saying that some of the most radi-
cal of the Chinese progressives think it
would do little or no harm to repeat Hwang-
ti's destruction of the " Classical Litera-
ture."
My introduction to Chinese literature was
through the reading by my teacher of ^an
kiio chill yen i, and his explanation thereof.
This is an historical novel based upon the
wars of the Three Kingdoms. When tlie
Ilan D^masty was overthrown, A. D. 190,
there was the greatest confusion throughout
the whole of China, and because of the
many important characters who appeared
upon the stage of the national play-house,
50 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
it was a period of great interest and the ac-
count of the wars between the three rival,
petty kingdoms; first Wei, in the central
and northern provinces with their capital
city Lo-Yang in Honan province; second
Wu, which included some of the provinces
south of the Yang-tze Eiver, its capital
Nangking; and third Shu, which included
most of the western part of the country, par-
ticularly the great Sz-chuan province, with
its capital city Cheng-tu.
I have always said that the true Chinese
people are not warlike or naturally blood-
thirsty, and I am as firmly convinced as
ever of those facts. Yet it is astonishing
what a hold tliis San kiio chih yen i has upon
them. It tells of the distractions of that
period, of the clash of armies in fierce bat-
tle; of the cunning plans laid by skilful
generals to deceive their rivals, and to gain
victory when it was not always true that the
Lord is on the side of the largest legions.
As an illustration of these cunning
tricks, there is a story told that one admiral,
whose supply of arrows was nearly ex-
hausted, had a number of dummy sailors
made by stuffing clothes with hay. Then
lie bore down towards the enemy and gave all
indications of attack. The opposing ad-
miral at once ordered his men to send a
shower of arrows against the approaching
LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 51
enemy, being deceived by the appearance
of the dummies into supposing that he was
slaughtering the soldiers of his enemy.
When the attacking, wily admiral thought
that he had sufficiently^ replenished his sup-
ply of arrows, he drew off and then made
preparation for a serious attack, which was
entirely successful.
This same book bristles with accounts of
the valorous deeds of individuals that sim-
ply pass beyond our ability to comprehend.
There are so many of them that they become
almost commonplace. I have already given
one of these tales and there are plenty more
for those who care to read. It is entirely
true as Dr. Ilerbert A. Giles says : " If a
vote were taken among the people of China,
as to the greatest among their countless
novels, the Story of the Three Kingdoms
would indubitably come out first,"
I had worked hard at the Chinese lan-
guage for eight or nine months, when I
suddenh' found myself thinking and even
dreaming in the Swatow vernacular. Then
my teacher said I was ready to hear the ^am
kol-u, as he called the title of tlie novel,
lie read it to me, but he put it into tlie
simple local dialect which I was able to
understand, and I really did find myself en-
joying tlie book.
Manv centuries before the 1)e<j,imiiiig of
52 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
our era, the citizens of the ancient feudal
states of China enjoyed a considerable meas-
ure of physical civilization. When they
were not at war amongst themselves, there
was a reasonable security for life and prop-
erty. The people lived in fairly good
houses, they were dressed in silk or robes
made from homespun cotton or other fibers ;
they carried umbrellas both against the sun
and the rain; they sat on chairs and at
tables around which they gathered for meals
or other purposes; they rode in carts or
chariots; they traveled extensively in boats
along the rivers and connecting canals;
they ate their food off plates and dishes of
pottery which were perhaps coarse, yet they
were certainly superior to the wooden
trenchers that were common in Europe un-
til a surprisingly short time ago.
"They measured time by the sundial, and
in the Golden Age they had two famous
calendar trees, representations of which
have come down to us in sculpture, dating
from about A. D. 150. One of tliese trees
put forth a leaf every day for fifteen days,
after which a leaf fell off daily for fifteen
more days. The other put forth a leaf once
a month for half a year, after which a leaf
fell off monthly for a similar period. With
these trees growing in the court yard, it
was possible to say at a glance what was the
LITERATURE ANC FOLK-LORE 53
day of the month, and what was the month
of the year. But civilization proved un-
favorable to their growth, and the species
became extinct." *
In the sixth century before Christ the
Chinese had a written language, fully com-
petent to express the most varied forms of
human thought. It was almost identical
with the present ideographs, if we make
reasonable allowance for certain modifica-
tions of forms which have been brought
about by the use of paper and the paint-
brush pen that have been used for so long,
instead of the thin bamboo tablets and the
sharp stylus of old times.
Confucius was born, it is generally
agreed, in the year 551 B. C. He may be
regarded as the founder of Chinese litera-
ture. Whether there had been before him
anything that we may properly call general
literature, it is impossible to say. But ap-
parently the main use to which writing had
been put was to keep the records of the im-
perial court and to note the doings of the
dynasty.
Confucius gathered together whatever
of literary fragments he could find, and
thc^se he compiled and edited in tlie ^hu
Chlng, " The Book of History."' (Williams
calls tliis SJiic King, "Book of Eecords.")
* Giles, ITcrltort A., A History of Chinese Literature.
54 ouK neighbors: the Chinese
Tliere were originally, it is said, one hun-
dred of tlie documents comprising this
work, and they covered a wide range of
time from the twenty-fourth to the eighth
century before Christ. The first two of
these documents refer to Emperors Yao and
Shun, who reigned from 2357 to 2205 B. C,
during what Cliinese antiquarians regard
as the Golden Age of their country. Yao
" united the various parts of his domain in
the bonds of peace, so that concord reigned
among the black-haired people." In this
Book of History there are some poems that
admit of very close rendering in Engli.sh,
for it is a curious fact that in directness of
expression and in the arrangement accord-
ing to the rules of syntax, the English sen-
tence is very like the Chinese.
We are likewise indebted to Confucius
for the preservation of what is considered
tlie next most ancient work in Chinese lit-
erature. It is the Shih Ching or " Book of
Odes." (Williams calls it SJii King.) It
is a collection of rhymed ballads in various
meters, usually four words to the line, and
showing a curious balance between the
main word of one line and that of the com-
plementary line. The poems were com-
posed at various times between the reign of
Emperor Yu, distinguished by being called
LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 55
"The Great" (2208 to 2197 B. C.) There
are now three hundred and five of the bal-
lads, and therefore the collection is called
"The Three Hundred." It is said that
Confucius made his selection from some-
thing like three thousand pieces that he
gathered together from all parts of the
country during his wanderings. They are
all very didactic, and each is considered to
hold a hidden meaning or to point some
moral. This is an admirable illustration :
Don't come in, sir, please!
Don't break my willow-trees!
Not that that would very much grieve me;
But alack-a-day! what would my parents say?
And love you as I may,
I cannot bear to think what that would be.
In this, commentators discover a hidden
historical meaning; that a feudal chief
wliose brother had been attempting his over-
throw, being loath to punish that brother,
finds excuse for not doing so.
It is declared that Confucius himself at-
taclied so much importance to those ballads,
that wlien liis own son answered negatively
to the question " Rave you learned the
Odes? " the sage declared, witli much heat,
that until lie had done so, tlie young man
would not be fit to associate with intelligent
56 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
men. These odes possess great value for
the student of ethnology, and particularly
give interesting information as to manners
and customs of the Chinese people before
the time of the great Confucius.
Perhaps the oldest book of all, and the
most important one of the pre-Confucian
works, is the I Ghing or " The Book of
Changes" (the Yih King of Williams). It
is credited to Wen Wang, who was virtually
the founder of the Chou Dynasty. His son,
Wu Wang, became the first sovereign of the
dynasty which held the throne from 1122
to 255 B. C. The importance of this book,
in the eyes of the Chinese students of for-
mer times, was the fanciful system of phi-
losophy deduced from the eight trigrams,
which have been already mentioned, in con-
nection with Fuh-hi. For an illustration
of the reading of these trigrams and the ex-
panded diagrams based upon them the
reader is referred to Dr. Legge's works, or
Giles' Chinese Literature.
The Li Chi, " The Book of Eites " (Wil-
liams' Li Ki), and the older work Chow Li,
" The Rules of the Chou Dynasty " are al-
ways coupled together, forming one of the
Six Classics, recognized in ancient times.
Their names indicate sufficiently what they
are. The last of the great Five Classics, as
LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 57
the ancient literature came to be consti-
tuted, is the Ch'un ChHu, or " The Spring
and Autumn Annals" (Williams' Chun
Tsiu). It is merely a chronological record
of the chief events in the State of Lu, where
Confucius was born. It covers the years
from 722 to 484 B. C, and is generally re-
garded as the only one of the Classics which
may properly be attributed to Confucius
himself.
The great mass of Chinese literature con-
sists of commentaries upon the Classics,
explanations of obscure passages, and
varying readings. I do not mean to say
that during the 2500 years, during which
the Chinese have possessed the art of writ-
ing, there has been nothing of a general
nature added to their literature. On the
contrary the collection is something enor-
mous ; and there is not space sufficient even
to notice it briefly. Some of it will live ;
but much of it will disappear as the Chinese
mind turns toward the practical affairs of
life as they are to be determined hereafter.
There are many volumes of most inter-
esting Chinese folk-lore tales that have been
translated into English by competent
scholars. I have space for just one and
that I have selected almost as much for its
brevity as anything else. Yet the theme,
58 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
conjugal fidelity, is one that is very dear
to the Chinese.
The Faithful Gander
A sportsman of Tientsin, having snared
a wild goose, was followed to his home by
the gander, which flew round and round
him in great distress, and w^ent away only
at nightfall. The next day, when the
sportsman went out, there was the bird
again ; and at length it alighted quite close
to his feet. He was on the point of seizing
it, when suddenly it stretched out its neck
and disgorged a piece of pure gold; where-
upon the sportsman, understanding what
the bird meant, cried out : " I see ! this is to
ransom your mate, eh?" Accordingly, he
at once released the goose, and the two
birds flew away with many expressions of
their mutual joy, leaving to the sportsman
nearly three ounces of pure gold. Can,
then, mere birds have such feelings as these?
Of all sorrows there is no sorrow like
separation from those we love ; and it seems
that the same principle holds good even of
dumb animals.
CHAPTER V
EDUCATION: FORMER AND MODERN
WHILE I was making my first lengtliy
stay in China, the Rev. Justus Doo-
little was putting through the press his
interesting book, " Social Life of the Chi-
nese." It was a valuable work in many
ways and this fact is made clear by the
reference to it made in the later editions
of Dr. Williams' more famous " The Middle
Kingdom.'' Doolittle wrote truthfully at
the time that a great obstacle to the speedy
conversion of the Chinese, was their syste-
matized, superstitious, and idolatrous edu-
cation. The child and the youth were all
then taught to believe in the constant
presence and powerful influence of number-
less gods and goddesses for good or evil.
He wrote : " For instance : from the time
of birth till sixteen years of age, boy and
girl are taught to believe that they are
under the special protection of a female de-
ity fancifully called ' Mother/ During this
period various superstitious and idola-
trous acts are very frequently performed
before her image or representative, either
as thanksgivings for favors believed to have
59
60 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
been received from her by them, or as meri-
torious acts in order to propitiate her kind
offices to preserve them in health or to cure
from sickness. When sixteen years old, a
singular ceremony is performed, whereby it
is indicated that they then pass out of the
special protection of ' Mother,' and come
under the care and control of gods and god-
desses in general." This writer's observa-
tions were made mainly at Foochow. Only
about two hundred miles down the coast,
at Swatow, I was trying to learn the Chi-
nese language from a middle-aged man who
was in the lowest rank of the literati. He
had passed the first examination for the
Civil Service, which was held at the fn
capital, Tiechiu (Chowchow) and had been
told that his papers were of a very high
grade of excellence. Naturally he expected
that the next examination, held at the pro-
vincial capital. Canton, would be equally
successful ; but to his amazement, he was
" plucked," and tliis happened several times.
"Why?" he asked; and most of his native
friends were prompt with their answer:
" Because you are a Christian ! " It was
true. Liu ITsiu Tsai had given up the wor-
ship of idols and tlie gods and goddesses of
China and had embraced Christianity, In
the early sixties of last century, that was
EDUCATION 61
fatal for any Chinese who hoped to become
a mandarin.
What a contrast there is between condi-
tions of fifty years ago, and the fact that
recently the government of the Chinese Re-
public officially asked Christian people all
the world over to pray that the delibera-
tions of the Chinese legislators might be
guided by divine wisdom: the wisdom of
the Christian's one Supreme God. The con-
trast has just been emphasized by the fact
that the Chinese Government has notified
entire freedom for religious belief.
Possibly that appeal to the world-wide
Christians was, as cynics declared, a clever
piece of diplomacy. The very fact that
such a thing could have happened from any
motive w^hatever, shows that the line which
now divides the Chinese Republic from the
past history of the great Chinese Empire,
is a broad one indeed. The simile I have
just used is not apt. That whicli divides
the Republic from the Empire is not a line,
it is a chasm ; already so wide that it can
never be bridged, and will be ever widening.
In nothing is the gap so tremendous as be-
tween the old methods of education and the
ways the young are now taught and will
be hereafter.
In the religious communities of former
62 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
times, Buddhist and Taoist, there were al-
ways provisions made for teaching boys
who contemplated the priesthood, how to
read and write a little, and sometimes this
was done even when the lads did not intend
to become priests. But there was precious
little education about that teaching. If I
were to teach my boy the letters of the
Greek alphabet so that he could read every
page of the Hellenic authors, I should have
very little right to say he understood what
he read, if I stopped there. So with the
Buddhist siitras and the Taoist texts.
Many priests could read the former, even
when they were written in Sanskrit, many
more could read both, if in Chinese ; but not
one in a hundred knew the meaning of that
which he was reading.
There was no such thing as a public
school in Old China, now and then some
specially good prefect or local official would
hire a young literary man, who had not re-
ceived a government appointment, to teach a
class of boys at the official residence, yainenj
but admission was always a matter of rank
and favoritism, and the instruction was
never anything practical : it was simply to
cram the boys' heads with the Five Classics
and the commentaries thereon by Confucius,
Mencius, and a thousand others whose one
delight it was to split hairs !
EDUCATION 63
Our quaiTel with the old time and for-
mer education of China is one of character,
rather than of scope. Many people tell us
that prls and women were absolutely ne-
glected in this matter, but I think this is
somewhat of a mistake. There was noth-
ing so general in the education of girls as
there was amongst the boys whose fathers
were able to afford to send them to school.
For every village had its private school.
In one of my earliest walks — it was the
first Sunday after I settled down at Swatow
and there was no church service that I
could attend — I passed near a small vil-
lage. I heard a terrific noise of boys'
voices, of that I was sure; yet they did not
seem to be quarreling. Before I could put
my question into words, my companion, who
spoke Chinese well, answered the question
that was clearly in my face and said:
" That is a school ! " " Ah, it is recess time,
I suppose, and the lads are playing."
" Not at all," was the laughing response,
" they are studying their lessons diligently."
Afterwards I had a chance to visit a na-
tive school for boys, and I saw the lads
sitting on the floor mats, or on rough forms.
Eacli one was shouting out his lesson at the
top of his voice, to convince the teacher tliat
he was lionestly working hard. In front of
the master's desk, back towards the teacher.
64 OUE NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
stood one boy wlio was reciting his lesson.
The lessons were always the same; a vol-
ume or two, or perhaps a page from the
idolized Classics — long or short according
to the attainments of the boy and his indi-
vidual capacity — and they were merely
learned by rote. There was no explanation
of the meaning of the hundreds of charac-
ters the boy memorized. Years afterwards
that would come. The boy was not even
learning to read, because it was possible
that the context might cause the sound or
intonation of a particular ideograph to
vary a little and thus completely alter the
meaning of the sentence.
Yet the rudimentary education was to
continue for ten years or more; then would
come from five to ten years of lectures on
the same Classics, with explanation of the
texts themselves, and commentaries in Chi-
nese. By the time the young man was from
twenty to twenty-five years of age, although
there was no age limit, he would be ready to
take his first competitive examination; and
if successful, to mount the first rung of the
ladder that might lead to the liighest honors
in the land.
It was a very beautiful and thoroughly
democratic system in principle; l)ut every
one knew that when tlie time came for the
" Budding Genius " to enter the examina-
EDUCATION 65
tion liall from whence this " genius " might
emerge as one " Keady for Office," his
chances would be much improved if some-
body's palm were comfortably greased.
Nominally the papers were supposed to be
absolutely anonymous. Yet there were
hundreds of cases, where the examiners'
particular friends passed brilliantly — even
when they were known to be stupid — while
hard-working and bright students were
thrown out.
I know it is said that girls were terribly
neglected in educational matters in China
until a very few years ago; yet the records
of the country show that a great many
women and from all walks of life, were fam-
ous for their poems, epigrams, and other
forms of composition. The education which
was given to the women of China in former
times, was nothing comparable with what
they are able to get nowadays, yet it fitted
them to be of some assistance to their hus-
bands; and it is pleasing to note in Chinese
literature that a just appreciation of this
assistance is often given.
In 1834 the Rev. Cliarles Cxutzlaff, when
commenting upon the narrow scope of
Chinese education, said that there was prac-
tically no such thing as an original writer,
and that there had not been any of these
for centuries. Some of the essays which
66 OUE neighbors: the Chinese
the successful candidates at the literary ex-
aminations had sent in, had been printed
and those were the nearest approach to
what may be called new publications. Yet
it would have been a mistake to call them
" new " in material or in treatment, for they
contained nothing but what millions of
similar scholars had written in precisely
the same circumstances for many centuries.
Still, it was for ability to write these
classical essays that officials were appointed
to command armies and ships of war, with-
out having received any more professional
education than training in the use of the
bow and perhaps how to ride a horse.
What a change has come over China with-
in little more than ten years. The premoni-
tory symptoms of that change were to be
noticed a few years before the close of the
nineteenth century. Indeed, it may truth-
fully be said that the most important lesson
which the war between China and Japan in
1894 and 1895 tauglit the former, was that
a radical change must be made in every way,
if China was not to be destroyed completely,
or at any rate put into a position of subor-
dination to her former pupil and imitator,
Japan. The lesson was taken to heart by
some — only a few at first — but that les-
son was confirmed and its teachinrjrs were
EDUCATION 67
firmly driven home by the result of the
Eusso-Japanese war.
Whether Japan was absolutely victorious
in that enterprise or not, does not matter;
her temerity in facing such a foe, her
prowess in the field, and the seeming suc-
cess, inspired the Chinese officials and the
people of the eastern provinces most tre-
mendously. Then was the beginning of the
new movement, which eventually culminated
in the birth of the Republic of China.
In two years time, there has been accom-
plished in China that which the broadest-
minded native of that country fifty years
ago would have declared impossible. The
old time examinations were done away with
forever, and instead of meaningless exposi-
tions of what the sages in dim antiquity
had said, and what later scholars had done
to expound the sages' teachings; the candi-
dates were called upon to write theses on
subjects which might easily have been taken
from the examination papers prepared by
a professor in one of our own institutions
of learning.
Education is no longer a matter of hap-
hazard that was left to the incompetent ped-
agogue in village or town ; and at the best
that which was supplied by some hind-
hearted official. The jroverument has
68 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
taken charge of general education, and the
Minister of Public Instruction is a man
who conceives his duty to be to give the
Chinese people, irrespective of sex or posi-
tion, as nearly the same advantages as the
West offers, due consideration being had
to all the circumstances.
From kindergartens to post-graduate
courses at the Peking University, the
scheme of education is as comprehensive as
possible. It is the desire of the foremost
men in the Republic, to have at least one
university in each of the eigliteen provinces
of China proper. In the outlying possess-
ions, the highest grades of educational in-
stitutions are to be provided as circum-
stances permit and the demand therefor
seems urgent. At the other end of the scale
there is to be common school education
provided for children and youths every-
where.
There shall never again be any reason
to say that the girls of China are at a dis-
advantage when contrasted with their
brothers. Technical education is to be
given as conspicuous a place as means per-
mit. In this phase of education a great
deal remains to be done; but seemingly
there is no need for telling such men as Dr.
Sun Yat-sen and tens of thousands who are
like him in kind if they do differ more or
EDUCATION 69
less in degree, that it is in this technical
education rather than in the purely literary
field the fateful future of China lies.
Many j-ears ago, the younger attaches of
the Chinese Legation at Washington were,
very plain-spoken in saying that their own
people must liave the control in building,
equipping, maintaining, and operating the
railways of China. Circumstances have
made it impossible for them to attain their
desire fully ; and probably it is well — so
long as the money for railways and so many
other enterprises must come from abroad
— that those who supply the pecuniary
means sliould have the controlling voice in
its expenditure. Yet in 1885 I knew some
young Chinese engineers who were as com-
petent to survey and build a railway as is
any graduate of the best technical school in
the United States.
Their weak point still is their inability
to control properly the operating expenses;
social lines are so curiously drawn in China
tliat even under the new rule, it is exceed-
ingly difficult to make a subordinate under-
stand that he must obey tlie man wlio is
above him, and who may possibly come of a
family that tlie subordinate knows to have
a much more diminutive ancestral tree than
his own.
This seeminglv anomalous state of affairs
70 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
is just one of the proofs that there has al-
ways been a strong strain of democracy in
the Chinese race. They seemed to stand
in abject terror of a mandarin. As his lord-
ship passed through the streets of the town,
his lictors used their whips and brushes to
clear a way, and the populace fell back, or
went down on their knees in the dust, as
though a vicegerent of the eternal gods was
appearing to them. But when the time
came to obey the mandate of his lordship,
and do something which infringed upon a
community right, there was none of that
seeming servility. The same spirit until it
has been properly controlled is going to be
an awkward obstacle in the pathway of
material development.
The very fact of the Protestant Christian
missionaries finding in the outset of their
enterprise, that the key which most prompt-
ly and effectively opened the doors of the
Chinese, was that which was held in the
hand of the missionary physician, is going
to continue to be a valuable asset. The
Chinese people themselves declare that such
physicians did more at first than the evan-
gelists; and I do not believe that any con-
scientious missionary will be angry if I say
that their influence in a comparative degree
has been abiding.
It was the western physician wlio began
EDUCATION 71
a work that is now being taken up by all
classes in China. Medical schools, hospi-
tals, infirmaries, maternity and nursing
homes, all forms of this glorious healing art,
are being established as rapidly as possible,
and the Ohinese themselves are displaying
a willingness to put away the abominable
methods of their old-time "Doctors" (the
pen almost refuses to write the word) and
put themselves into the hands of the modern
practitioner, be the doctor a native or a
foreigner, and — most wonderful of all —
whether the doctor be a man or a woman !
Could the spirit of Confucius walk
through eastern China to-day and see equal-
ity in all educational matters as well as in
the professions for women, girls, men, and
boys: could it know that modern surgery
is practised and even taught by the Chinese
themselves, what would happen? Because
it was but a short time ago that amputation
and all kindred surgery were considered
absolutely impious.
CHAPTER VI
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE
THE " Home " must have its basis in
marriage, and to that important epi-
sode in human life attention is to be given
first. Marriage is a matter of such tre-
mendous importance in China that the
parties who are to be united in wedlock are
permitted to have nothing whatever to say
about choice, mating, or anything else until
after the wedding is an accomplished fact;
so far as the engagement and simple cere-
mony are concerned. Of course, I am
speaking now rather of the China that was,
than the China that is; yet I doubt very
much if the radical changes which have
come in so many institutions with startling
rapidity during the last two years, have
very much influence upon betrothal and
marriage. It may be true in China, as it
actually is in Japan, that young men and
women who have been educated abroad or
in the liberal mission schools of their own
land, and who have all their lives been
brought up in an atmosphere of a " western "
community, are taking these matters into
their own hands.
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 73
The main reason for marriage in China
was, and I should not like to say it is
not so now, to preserve the continuity of
the family line. But a daughter cannot do
this for their own family, because to the Chi-
nese mind the term " ancestral line " meant
simply and absolutely, the continuity of
father and son without any consideration
being given to mother and daughter.
It was imperatively necessary that a man
should have a son who will perform the
pious rites before the ancestral tablets or
at the family tombs. Hence, the primary
reason for marriage and the creation of a
home. The attitude which Christian mis-
sionaries should take towards this subject
of ancestral worship has been one of the
most diflQcult problems with which they
have been brought face to face. I fear it
has not yet been satisfactorily settled ; but
there are cheering evidences that with the
spread of Christianity, the matter may
gradually lose its importance and be al-
lowed to pass into " innocuous desuetude."
Say what we like, it was a form of wor-
ship and the prayers which a devout Chinese
made before the ancestral tablets in his own
home, or at the graves of his fathers, were
supposed to be heard by the departed an-
cestors' spirits, who had power to grant or
refuse. The assertion that the seemiuo;
74 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
worship was in reality nothing more than
a mark of respect entirely comparable with
the act of a good American citizen in rais-
ing his hat as he stands before the tomb of
George Washington, or by the grave of his
own father, was — to express it mildly —
specious.
There was an old proverb in China,
" Without a go-between, a betrothal cannot
be effected." So the parents of a young
man who had reached marriageable age or
of a daughter who was fitted to become a
wife, employed a go-between, who either
made a selection himself and reported his
choice to the parents who employed him, or
acted on instructions given by his patrons
and sounded the parents of the girl or youth
who had been selected as a suitable part-
ner.
It was almost always the young man's
parents who commenced such negotiations.
The go-between was given a huge piece of
red paper (that is to say the formal Chinese
visiting card!) on which were written the
ancestral name of the family and full in-
formation as to the date of the young man's
birth; further information might be im-
parted through the go-between.
If the girl's parents listened to the go-
between, they then made inquiries about the
family of the young man. These being
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 75
satisfactory, it was most important to con-
sult a Fiuig-sui Siensnng, who, making use
of the eight trigrams, decided whether or
not the betrothal would be proper and aus-
picious. Needless to say, the nature of
this decision was easily influenced by the
size of the fee given the " doctor." It has
not been an unheard-of thing for a girl who
had some other young man in the corner of
her eye, to send the " doctor " a bigger fee
than her parents had furnished, with an in-
timation that it would be well to declare
against the proposed engagement.
After the go-between had presented the
card and it had been favorably received,
three days were given to investigation.
There were innumerable bad omens which
might cause instantaneous breaking off of
these negotiations: for example, the acci-
dental destruction of an earthenware bowl,
tlie loss of something valuable, or myste-
rious illness.
There was no civil or religious ceremony
to effect a marriage. The bride went to
the groom's home in a special kind of closed
sedan chair, or in a gorgeous palanquin
borne high on the shoulders of many coolies.
and ^^■as formally received by him. It
should be noted that every effort was made
to liave the wedding procession as conspic-
uous as possible. There was a band of
76 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
music, often some firecrackers, and a noisy
crowd; the size of the last mentioned being
measured by the ability of the bride's father
to distribute largesse! They sat for a few
minutes on the edge of the bridal bed in the
presence of the groom's parents and the go-
between; then they went before the ances-
tral tablets and w^orshiped the groom's an-
cestors; thence they proceeded to the
banquet hall, the bride's head being covered
with a veil or a peculiar headdress, where
they exchanged small cups of samshu (a
liquor distilled from rice). Finally they
partook together of their wedding dinner,
being attended by the women servants of the
household or some who were specially em-
ployed for the occasion. That consummated
the marriage as a ceremony ; then the girl's
name was struck off the register at her
father's house, and added to that of her
father-in-law, and that was all.
Stories connected with betrothal and mar-
riage customs are always interesting, and
that is my justification for including one
here. A betrothed couple in China were very
often declared " to have had their feet tied
together," the act of the gods being implied.
The story which explains this allusion is as
follows : In the time of the T'ang dynasty,
Ui-ko was once a guest in the city of Sung.
He observed an old man reading a book bv
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 77
the light of the moon, who addressed him
thus : " This is the register of the engage-
ments in marriage for all the places under
the heavens." He also said to him : " In
my pocket I have red cords with which I
tie together the feet of those who are to
become husband and wife. When this cord
has been tied, though the parties are of un-
friendly families, or of different nations
even, it is impossible to change their des-
tiny. Your future wife," continued the old
man, " is the child of the old woman who
sells vegetables in yonder shop towards the
north." In a few days Ui-ko went to see
her, and found the old woman had in her
arms a girl about a year old, who was ex-
ceedingly ugl3\ He hired a man, who went
and (as he supposed) killed the girl.
Fourteen years afterwards, in the country
of Siong-chiu, was a prefect whose family
name was Mo, surnamed Tai, who gave Ui-
ko in marriage a girl who, he affirmed, was
liis own daughter. She was very beautiful,
but over one eyebrow she always wore an
artificial flower. Ui-ko constantly asked
her why she wore the flower and at length
she said, " I am the daughter of the pre-
fect's brother. ]My father died in the city
of Sung when I was but an infant. ]\Iy
nurse was an old woman who sold vege-
tables. One dav she took me with her out
78 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
into the streets, when a robber struck me.
The scar of the wound is still on my eye-
brow."
The conviction of the Chinese that Fate
or Heaven decides who are to become hus-
band and wife, is quite as strange and as
convincing as is our own declaration,
" matches are made in heaven." If red
cords or threads are not literally used to
tie their feet together, the cups with which
a couple pledge each other are not unfre-
quently so united; the cords being taken
from the wedding gifts, which are invariably
tied up with such string. Some of those
same red cords are braided temporarily into
the groom's queue, while others are worked
into the embroidered design of the bride's
wedding shoes.
Another very curious thing about the old-
time marriage ceremony, if we may call it
so, was the conspicuousness of big needles.
The theory was that the thread could not
properly be used without a needle and if it
could not be used how were the two young
people to be drawn together?
Bearing in mind the primary reason for
which the mythological ancestor of the
Chinese instituted the right of marriage,
which was that a son might carry on the an-
cestral line, it was sufficient reason from
their point of view to justify polygamy.
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 79
Therefore if the " Real Wife " had no son to
perform the required sacrifices and offer the
necessary prayers to the father's shades, and
through that father to all the line of male
ancestors until goodness knows how far
back, it was permitted to take a secondary
wife or concubine.
But in her case there was none of the
ceremony that has been recounted when the
young people were truly married. Yet
even to-day every Chinese man likes to
have a number of sons of his own, even if
the ancestral worship is strictly the prerog-
ative of the eldest. To secure a lot of sons
is probably sufficient to explain why it is
that nearl}' every man in China, Avithout ex-
ception almost, is married and pretty
nearly every woman, too. To justify the
desire for many sons is an accepted excuse
for concubinage.
It must be borne in mind that there is no
disgrace to this concubinage, any more than
there is supposed to be nothing degrading
about the plural wives " sealed " to a Mor-
mon. In China as a matter of fact, with
the exception of the sentimental or reli-
gious dignity of tlie eldest son, all the boys
in a family are of absolutely equal rank
and their legal status is the same, if there
is some difference between them in the mat-
ter of inheritance due to primogeniture.
80 ouE neighbors: the chi:n^ese
The obligations of ancestor worship neces-
sitate the holding of the family real property
in one hand, and therefore to that extent
the eldest son is superior to his brothers.
Now, whether the young man receives his
bride into his father's " home '' — as is usu-
ally the case — or into one which he purposes
setting up for himself, she is sure to have a
dreary time for a while. Her mother-in-
law has the right, confirmed by immemorial
precedence, to make the young bride a
slave, if the older woman is so minded ; and
it is not to be wondered at that Chinese
poets and story writers so often represent
the forlorn creature passing her days in
tears which overflow from a homesick heart.
Because, while we have heard too many
true tales about female infanticide in
China, yet when the baby girl has been per-
mitted to grow up, she certainly has a
happy time so long as she remains in the
" home " of her own parents. Father,
mother, and brothers, treat her as their little
princess, and if — because of their thin
family purse — she has to labor, as a rule
her share of the task is small when com-
pared with that of her brothers.
Naturally then in the new home, the
bride is likely to be unhappy. Etiquette
and inflexible " old custom," the bugbear of
China, forbid her husband showing her any
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 81
of the pleasing gallantries and attentions
that are gladly given in America and Eu-
rope, and are naturally expected in our part
of the world. It is no part of the father-in-
law's duty to treat the new daughter as he
undoubtedly had borne himself towards his
own girls. The honeymoon in China is
inevitably a forlorn time for the bride, and
there is nothing about it which the groom
himself recalls with any special pleasure.
When the two young people become ac-
quainted then interest often ripens into the
sincerest affection ; something that may
properly be dignified by the name of " love."
There are innumerable instances mentioned
in history and in lighter literature of the
devotion shown by a woman for her hus-
band, and of her ability to render him
material assistance in many ways; and on
the other hand there are an equal number
of pleasing proofs that the Chinese man has
for his wife and children as sincere an af-
fection as is to be found in any part of the
world.
If the first child is a boy, the mother's
position is changed completely. She may
now, in a measure, lord it over her mother-
in-law, wlio certainly will no longer dare to
make a drudge of her daughter-in-law.
Amongst tlie Chinese there is naturally,
when we think of their ideas as to the im-
82 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
portance of preserving the ancestral line,
a strong preference for at least one boy, or
more of them. But when the ancestral wor-
ship has been suflSciently assured, and if the
circumstances of the family are fairly good,
then there is a desire for a girl.
With the coming of the first child, whether
it be a boy or a girl, we may say that family
life has now begun; and it is often as
happy an one as is that of the Japanese,
and in a previous volume of this series it
has been shown that such life amongst our
Japanese neighbors is as happy as is to be
found in any part of the world.
The Chinese dwelling varies in size and
in certain aspects just as much as do our
own. There is little variation in the styles
of architecture, and the wealthy men were
scrupulously careful to shut themselves in
behind high walls so that no strangers could
look into the privacy of their home life.
Conservative as the Chinese have forever
been in most ways; yet some of them dis-
play a surprising imitativeness in certain
matters. The description of a wealthy mer-
chant's house at Canton, or that of a suc-
cessful scholar in any part of the country,
or that of an official, or that of a villa in
some picturesque spot or on the shores of
a lake of great natural beauty, would an-
swer for the same character of abode in the
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 83
extreme nortli — a reasonable concession to
Divine Meteorologjy being made.
There would be nothing for the outsider
to see except the high wall made of sun-
dried bricks; the tiled roofs of the build-
ings, for size and importance of the resi-
dence is measured by the number of these
rather than by the number of stories; be-
cause even the multimillionaires (and there
were and are a goodly number of these in
China) rarely goes up more than one flight
of steps.
If riches increase and the family develops
in children and grandchildren, the house
spreads over more ground, and this necessity
gives the chance for added courtyards,
numerous miniature gardens, and all man-
ner of quaintness in internal arrangement,
attractive passages connecting the different
parts of the establishment, and other details
peculiar to the architecture of China. Is
not our Chinese neighbor to be envied in
tills?
I have always known that I was singu-
larly fortunate in going to China when I
was a lad, and especially so in that my
good teacher, working with receptive ears
and a fairly fluent tongue, speedily put me
in command of the vernacular. When some
of his loyal literary friends, those who
were brave enougli to refuse to ostracize
84 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
him because of his defection in the matter
of religion, and who themselves had been
more successful in their careers than he;
and when several of the wealthy merchants
as well as some of the grand officials even,
like the Tau-tai (sub-prefect), learned that
I could speak " The Clear Language," they
often invited me to their homes.
When I accepted these invitations, and
I was always glad to do so, if possible, I
was treated by them with a freedom that
would not have been extended to their
native friends, because of the strong re-
straint caused by conventions. This pleas-
ing treatment my hosts were unwilling to
extend to any older foreigner. My mission-
ary friends often saw the Chinese at home;
but it was never until they had induced
at least some of the inmates to put away
their heathen worship and accept Chris-
tianity. Even in such cases there was al-
ways a certain restraint, at least so they
told me.
With me, however, there was apparently
no restraint at all. After the shyness of
the first call had worn off, — the girls were
just as free with me as they were with their
own brothers. The mother and all the
women folks went about the house just as
they would have done had I not been there.
My host made himself as informally com-
HOME AND FAMILY LIFE 85
fortable as he liked; and this means a good
deal in a Chinese home, because the shoes
they wear are never very comfortable, and
as soon as a man can do so he puts them
off and goes about the house in slippers
or stocking-feet or barefooted. If the
weather is at all warm, he discards his outer
robes with a desire to be as negligee
as possible.
As for myself, when once in the family
living room and the invariable formalities
of speech and salutation had been ex-
changed, I roamed about at my own sweet
will, but was usually accompanied by some
of the younger members of the family, who
never seemed to get over their amazement
that " an outside barbarian " could con-
verse with them in the only language that
human beings ought to use.
I never detected the first trace of privacy
as we would use the word ; although I knew
that into the " women's quarters " it was
not seemly for me to go. That restriction
was put upon the older boys of the family
quite as much as it was upon any adult
male. I liave seen many a treasure of bric-
a-brac, many a bed of flowers hidden away
in the heart of a city; but I never saw a
truly comfortable room, measured by our
own standards, in a Chinese home ! I don't
believe tliere ever was one that would do-
86 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
serve tlie name according to our opinions.
At Shanghai, Hongkong, Singapore, and
some other places where the Chinese are
brought constantly into association with for-
eigners and have taken to imitating the ways
of Europeans and Americans, in a measure
at least, there are dwelling houses in which
the natives have reception rooms and even
dining halls that are furnished in what is
called a European fashion. In some of
these there are easy chairs, sofas, and divans
so that the foreign visitors are made fairly
comfortable.
CHArTER YII
OCCUPATIONS
THE first Europeans to make acquaint-
ance with our Chinese neighbors found
them to be a remarkably industrious
and intelligent people. John de Piano
Carpini, an early missionary of the Romish
Church, was at the Court of the Grand
Khan of Tartary in the years 1245 to 1247,
but he did not succeed in getting into China
proper. lie saw a number of Chinese at
the Mongol Court, however, and although
he called them heathen, as he was almost
compelled to do any who differed from him
in belief, yet he admitted that they were an
intelligent people, having a method of writ-
ing which was peculiarly their own. He
added, moreover, that they were kindly in
disposition, and in their way, fairly pol-
ished. Carpini declared that from what his
observation enabled him to determine, the
Chinese of his time were admirable crafts-
men in every art practised by man, and, he
said, " their betters are not to be found in
any part of the whole world."
A Franciscan friar, Rubruquis, went to
Asia some time after Carpini, and reached
87
88 OUR neighbors; the Chinese
Cathay, or Cliina, which he affirmed was
the land of Ceres " with which we are made
familiar by the writings of the Latin poets
of the Augustan Age.'^ Kubruquis said
that the Cathayans, that is, the Chinese,
were small people in stature and one of
their marked peculiarities was to speak
through their noses; like practically all the
Mongols, their eyes were narrow.
He considered the Chinese to be first rate
workmen in every branch of industry and
art. He even went so far as to speak ap-
provingly of their thorough knowledge of
the virtues of all herbs, and he considered
that they had an admirable skill in diagnosis
by the pulse. I may very properly inter-
polate here that a much later visitor, the
famous Roman Catholic missionary Hue,
who traveled in China during the first half
of the nineteenth century, was also pleased
with the skill of the Chinese doctors.
Hue had the misfortune to break some of
his ribs, and before he came to a place
where he could secure medical assistance,
a considerable fever had developed. When
at last a physician and surgeon was found,
he first administered a cooling acid drink,
made with native vinegar, and not at all
unlike lemonade, but unsweetened. This,
with some decoctions of herbs, allayed the
fever sufficiently' to permit of attempting to
OCCUPATIONS 89
reduce the fractured ribs. Then the doctor
bade his patient sit upright and suddenly
dashed some ice-cold water into Hue's face.
Naturally, of course, the patient gasped
for breath violently, and this action so
quickly and so greatly expanded the lungs
that the ribs were thrown back into place
and thereafter they promptly reunited.
Although we may be amused by this
crude, yet effective, surgery, yet we cannot
share the opinions of Rubruquis and Hue
that Chinese doctors were even entitled
to be considered true physicians and sur-
geons.
Rubruquis adds his testimony to show
that the Chinese were skilled in every art,
and were so far advanced in commercial
affairs as to use bank-notes for a circulating
medium. These were made " of pieces of
cotton paper about a palm in length and
breadth, upon which lines are printed re-
sembling the seals of Mangu Khan," who
was the third in succession from the famous
Genghis Khan.
The Polos, Nicolo, his brother Maffeo, and
Marco, son of the first named, visited Ca-
thay in the years 1275 to 1292 and were also
much impressed with the industrial and
commercial advance of the Chinese. That
which especially attracted their attention
was the use of bank-notes, which were not
90 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
used in Europe for quite four centuries
after that time.
In the British Museum, London, there is
a Chinese bank-note of the fourteenth or
early fifteenth century. The paper is al-
most black. Marco Polo gives this explana-
tion of the color : " The Emperor makes
them [his subjects] take the bark of a cer-
tain tree, in fact of the Mulberry tree, the
leaves of which are the food of the silk-
worms — the trees being so numerous that
whole districts are full of them. What
they take is a certain fine white bast or
skin which lies between the wood of the tree
and the thick outer bark, and this they
make into something resembling sheets of
paper, but black."
It will thus be evident that the occupa-
tions of the Chinese have been numerous
and of a very varied nature ever since those
people were known to Europeans. It is un-
necessary to state that industry and di-
versity of occupation continue to be their
characteristics, while that the scope has
greatly extended within the past two or
three centuries is also a matter of common
knowledge.
There has been, however, marked de-
terioration in some of their finer arts within
less tlian a millennium. Pictorial art is now
not to be compared with what it was in the
M
,1/.V Street, Mukden
OCCUPATIONS 91
time of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644
A. D.) and the earlier Sung dynasty (960
to 1279 A. D. ) , when the artists of Japan
sought wisdom and instruction in the studios
of Chinese artists.
The temptation to discuss the growth and
characteristics of Chinese graphic art must
be resisted, for even a cursory glance would
more than supply me with material for an
entire volume. Yet I cannot refrain from
saying that in this particular art the Jap-
anese, as scholars, have so far outstripped
their former teachers, that no critic would
think of comparing the ordinary pictures
from the Japanese studios with the best
from China during more than three cen-
turies.
Many of the peculiarly Chinese charac-
teristics of pictorial art have been forgot-
ten and it is not likely that efforts will be
made to revive them. It is sad, too, that the
best features of the keramic art have been
lost ; it is declared that the paste, glaze,
and decoration of the Ming dj'Uasty can-
not now be satisfactorily reproduced.
Tills may be true, and yet I am inclined to
doubt it. The pottery of that time was
something that would be quite as attractive
now as it ever was, could it be reproduced
in shape, material, design, and finish. I
rather think that there may come a demand
92 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
which will stimulate the students of applied
chemistry to rediscover all that is neces-
sary to give us what is said to be a " lost
art."
My reason for this opinion is based, in a
measure, upon the following described inci-
dent. A few years ago there were gathered
round a luncheon table in Tokyo, a number
of art enthusiasts, connoisseurs and manu-
facturers, to do honor to a Western collec-
tor of world-wide fame, who was making
his first visit to Japan. His cabinets at
home were filled with specimens of the best
keramic art of Japan since the birth of the
Satsuma ware, in the last decade of the
eighteenth century ; as well as of the older,
although much less attractive wares of pre-
Satsuma times.
In the center of the table stood a tall vase
of apparently Chinese origin, of great an-
tiquity, and a wonderful sample of a " lost
art." Towards the end of the repast, when
satisfied appetites gave better opportunity
to discuss less material things than the good
ones of the table, a European of recognized
fame as an expert in keramics, remarked
that it was an awful pity such charming
shapes, such effective colors, and such
marvelous glaze, could no longer be pro-
duced. " For," said he, — " it is many cen-
turies since men lost the art of makins: such
OCCUPATIONS 93
a treasure as that which ornaments our
host's table," and he pointed to the vase.
Then a manufacturer, whose masterpieces
have been the admiration of all who were
privileged to examine them, asked permis-
sion to look at the vase closely. The host
at once gave consent, although there was a
twinkle in his eyes, and he told the servant
to remove the flowers, empty the water, and
bring the dry vase back to the table. This
was done, and the manufacturer then turned
the vase upside down, looked towards his
host with a nod as of request, and received
a permissive nod in reply. He then drew
his pocket knife and chipped off a flake
from the bottom thus revealing his own
trade-mark !
The vase, that represented " lost arts "
in paste, decoration, and glaze, had been
made by himself, or at least in his own
factory. I mention no names, but tlie story
can be verified; and this being so, I see no
reason why all the " lost " features of this
keramic industry might not be recovered.
If it were made possible to supply " Peach-
blow Vases," in every way equal to the ex-
quisite confections of the Ming potteries;
the owner of the pair that recently brought
£4000 at auction, miglit feel that he has a
cause for action in destroying the senti-
mental value of his treasure.
94 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
But the occupations of our Chinese
neighbors must be considered in a more
practical way tlian has been done. Agri-
culture is so far in the lead that within the
eighteen provinces of China proper, all the
rest, if lumped together, would not equal
it in value. The Chinese are essentially
a farming class and this industry is still
the one upon which they live. The Man-
chus, the Mongolians, the Tibetans, and the
Mahometans of Dzungaria and Turkestan,
may be herdsmen and shepherds (very in-
cidentally agriculturalists), but the impor-
tance of their occupations shrinks to almost
nothing when compared with that of the
Chinese farmer.
One could easily fill a large volume with
an account of all the phases of agriculture.
Probably the highest place would be given
to silk culture because of its aesthetic at-
tractiveness and its great money value.
Tea, too, would rank very high, even if most
Europeans and Americans have turned from
Chinese teas to those of India and Japan,
for so long as the hundreds of millions of
the Chinese continue to use tea, and the
many millions of Russians do the same,
there cannot be very serious diminution of
the value of this industry.
Let us hope that the Chinese certainly
will not speedily change their common
OCCUPATIONS 95
beverage from tea to cold water. There are
so many diseases which contaminated water
spreads easily, that cholera and other fatal
complaints would work even greater havoc
among the people who hardly know what
pure drinking water is. As water must
be actually boiling properly to draw tea, at
least some of the danger is removed.
All along the coast and in the inland
Avaters, the fisherman in China follows an
occupation that is very little behind in im-
portance, that of his brothers in Japan.
" Besides all these inner-water craft, there
are the sea-going fishing smacks, and trawl-
ers and numerous fishing-junks of one sort
or another, which supph' the enormous
market for fish in China, dead and alive,
salt and fresh, with such a variety that if
one ate everything that comes out of the
sea, as the Chinese do, there would be a new
kind of fish for every day in the year. For
they range from the baby oyster to the
shark or dog-fish, from the toothsome, semi-
translucent white-rice fish to the green-
boned (jasupa*
The commercial and industrial pursuits
of our Chinese neighbors open a subject that
is nearly inexhaustible. If there were
bank-notes in circulation more than four
hundred years before such things were
*Eall, J. Dyer, The Chinese at Tlome.
96 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
known in Europe, there must have been
bankers or money-changers to use them ; and
there must have been merchants who found
these convenient accessories to commerce
and trade useful, else they would hardly
have been in general circulation. Hence, it
is correct to assume that the Chinese were
merchants and tradesmen, while yet Europe
was utterly ignorant of anything approach-
ing even rude barter.
Markets — in the broad, proper sense of
the word — were an institution in China so
long ago that record of their beginning is
either lost or it never was noted. Not only
is this true precisely of China proper; but
it is likewise true in a general way of the
outlying possessions of the Republic.
One thing that the Chinese merchant
learned long ago, and learned his lesson
well, is that it pays to be honest. He is
just as fond of dollars as any human being
and he probably would not hesitate any
more than the trickiest of his Yankee neigh-
bors to get ten for one whenever he could
do so. But if this getting ten for one to-
day means the loss of trade that would
bring two for one for twenty years, he is
shrewd enough to prefer the continued day
of small things.
As toy-makers and workers in all manner
of pretty little things, the Chinese artizans
OCCUPATIONS 97
are equal to any in the world. As gold
and silversmiths, too, they are past masters.
These latter are, however, about the most
unreliable and tricky of the Chinese. Yet
as imitators they are without peers. What-
ever is put into their hands will be copied
as to appearance with a faithfulness that
all too often deceives the original owner.
For there have been many instances of a for-
eigner entrusting to an ivory-carver or sil-
versmith or some other craftsman, an arti-
cle to be copied, and long after finding that
the one returned to him as the original was
itself a copy, the wily workman having kept
for himself the more valuable original.
Occupations! there is no occupation
known to man that does not now find its
representative amongst our Chinese neigh-
bors. But there are many occupations
which were either entirely peculiar to
China, or so very different from kindred
occupations in America and Europe as to
make them seem to be unique. Take, for
example, the barbers. Until the passing of
the Manchus and with them the shaved
head and long queue of the men, the Chi-
nese barbers were institutions in every way
peculiar unto themselves.
It lias never been clear to me just what
was the legal status of that queue. Some
writers declare that the Mancliu conquerors
98 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of China insisted upon their newly -acquired
subjects conforming to a fashion that was
known to be peculiarly Manchu; and that
the seventeenth century conquerors com-
pelled the Chinese to shave their heads, all
but a round patch at the crown and to braid
the hair which was allowed to grow, into a
long pigtail. It was considered a mark of
subjugation, and failure to conform to the
order was cause enough for the non-wearer
to lose his head.
Other authorities declare that it never
was made absolutely compulsory, but the
politic Chinese soon saw the wisdom of
paying their conquerors the sincere flattery
of imitation. I have never seen an edict
compelling the Chinese to adopt the peculiar
style of hair-dressing.
But to return to the barbers. They
were usually peripatetic ; that is they rarely
had a shop — for myself I must say I never
saw such a fixed establishment.
Often the barber had his regular custo-
mers to whose homes he went daily, or as
often as he was required to do so. He car-
ried two nests of drawers slung at the ends
of his carrying-pole, which he bore on one
shoulder. In the drawers were the imple-
ments of his trade; but there were besides
lancets (if that name may be applied to the
OCCUPATIONS 99
knives which the barber used to let blood)
and various nostrums which he was con-
tinually tryiuf^ to persuade his customers
to buy. In these respects the Chinese bar-
ber was not altogether unlike his European
congener of a very short time ago, who was,
as we all know, a combination of barber
and chirurgeon.
One of the barber's boxes was the right
height for a seat — if he chanced to find
a customer in the street. Then took place,
al fresco^ the process of unbraiding the
queue, shaving the head, probing the ears
and nose, and if there were hairs, to cut
them out with a peculiarly shaped, narrow
razor. The victim's eyes, too, were often
" cleansed " by the barber, who turned the
lids inside out and wiped them with a brush
or a tuft of cotton which was not infallibly
treated antiseptically after each operation.
Small wonder that diseases of the eye were
so common as they used to be in China, and
are even now, comparatively.
Tlie shaving of the man in the public
streets aroused no curiosity whatever; the
passers-by did not stop for an instant, and
even a woman would occasionally call upon
tlie barber in the broad liighway (no, nar-
row, for " broad "' streets were unknown in
the tru(^ Chinese^ city), to hav(^ lier face
100 ouK neighbors: the Chinese
shaved and her ears, nose, and eyes attended
to. The itinerant barber will probably dis-
appear before long.
Space does not permit of a lengthy ac-
count of the Chinese sedan-chair coolies.
They were, to be sure, not altogether unlike
similar porters in Europe and even in
America a century or so ago; but their oc-
cupation was conducted in a somewhat dif-
ferent manner. Nor can I dwell at length
upon the coffin-makers. All that I can do
is to say that this occupation was a most
important one; because very often a man
bought his coffin years before he had actual
use for it, and he gave careful attention
to the making of this, his last bed, and was
not in the least superstitious about taking
it to his home, however much he may have
dreaded bad luck in other ways. Our
Chinese neighbors, in many of their occupa-
tions were certainly a very peculiar people;
but I imagine that with the general turning
towards the ways of the rest of the world,
many of those peculiar customs, trades, oc-
cupations, and professions, will become as
commonplace as they are in every other
quarter of the globe.
CHAPTER VIII
PLEASURES OF LIFE
IF we give place to the ladies, as gal-
lantry commands and as consideration
makes agreeable, it has to be admitted that
in former times the circle of a Chinese
grown-up woman's life was not measured
by a very long radius. If she belonged to
the poorer classes, her life as a woman be-
gan when she married and went to her hus-
band's home. Here she became at once the
slave of her parents-in-law and a household
drudge in every way.
About her only pleasure was the occa-
sional or definite visit to the temple with
which her husband's family affiliated.
Tliis might be once a moon or, in exceptional
cases, twice a moon. I use the word
" moon " instead of " month," because the
subdivision of the year was measured by
the waxing and waning of the moon, and
those periods were called distinctly
" moons." The first day was that of the
new moon, the fifteenth — or ver^^ near it
■ — was the day of the full moon, and these
were the times usually chosen for those
101
102 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
temple dissipations that were often the
only pleasure a poor woman knew.
I do not mean to say that the maternal
instinct — as strong with the Chinese
woman as with any of her sisters the world
over — did not often find a source of pleas-
ure, even in a hovel, from taking care of the
little ones and watching them grow up to
boyhood and girlhood. But poverty in
China had an intenseness which very few
of our people know ; and " cares and sor-
rows and childbirth's pains " meant more to
a poor Chinese woman than it did to most
of her Western sisters.
It was usually considered proper for a
wife to accompany her husband on the an-
nual or semi-annual visit to the graves of
his ancestors. That is, if grinding poverty
did not compel the man to neglect this duty
which was considered almost sacred. The
importance of this ceremony will readily be
understood if my readers can only put
themselves for a moment into the position
of the Chinese Avho were taught to believe
that the worship of ancestors and attention
to their mmics in every way, was the only
chief spiritual duty of man.
Visits to the family tombs may be made
at any time and are quite as appropriate as
our own visits to the special comers of the
cemetery that are dear to us, and the plac-
PLEASURES OF LIFE 103
ing of fresh flowers upon the graves of those
whom we have loved. But in China the
great occasion for these visits was one hun-
dred and six days after the winter solstice,
during the period that was called tsing-
ming in the old or Lunar calendar. If the
ceremony is kept up now that the Gre-
gorian calendar has supplanted the Lunar,
this ceremony will take place somewhere
about the 7th of April.
In the southern province of Kwan-tung,
Canton the capital, it was called pai slum,
or " worshiping on the hills." The gen-
eral name for the festival was siu fan ti,
or " sweeping the graves." In any lo-
cality, while the general name was under-
stood, there was pretty sure to be a special,
local name, similar to that used by the peo-
ple of Kwan-tung. The Cantonese name
was very appropriate, because the first im-
portant requirement in the matter of fix-
ing tlie situation of a grave, was to get it on
a hillside so that the fung-shiii should be
good.
An ideal Chinese grave was cut into the
face of a gradually sloping hill, which was
dug away in front of the actual grave so
as to leave a small amphitlioater shaped
very like the Greek letter Omega, the ends
of the horseslioe-like structure usually end-
ing in a small pilaster, whicli might be used
104 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
as a stand for a vase of flowers, or the
figures of the Dogs of Fuh, " Buddha's
Dogs," who were the special guardians of
graves.
The rounding sides of the amphitheater
rose gradually to the middle of the tomb's
side walls; and here, in the face of the hill,
is the tombstone, bearing the posthumous
name of the dead person — for the departed
is not to be spoken of or thought of by his
name during life, and a priest or a geoman-
cer must select an appropriate and lucky
one to be placed on the tombstone and upon
the ancestral tablets.
Immediately in front of the tombstone
stands a stone slab, supported on four feet
or rough stones; and on this is placed the
tray which contains the articles for sacri-
fice, the samshii for libations, candles,
paper, and incense. At the sin fan ti the
grave was repaired, the floor of the amphi-
theater swept, the dead leaves and litter
cleared away from the surrounding land,
and at the close of the service three pieces
of turf were placed at the front and back,
under which or into which by means of small
sticks, long strips of red and white paper
were placed. These served to indicate that
the proper rites had been performed, be-
cause sometimes, if a grave stood neglected
PLEASURES OF LIFE 105
for three years, the ground might be plowed
over and the land resold.
In addition to the offering at the grave
itself, the worshipers came provided with
food and drink sufficient to permit of their
picnicking. After the food and samshu had
stood for a little while on the stone tablet,
it was assumed that the spirits of the de-
ceased had partaken of all they needed, and
the material residuum was added to the
mourners' feast. Such occasions as this
often gave a Chinese woman in former times
one of her very few pleasures in the way of
recreation. But she took no part in the
worship.
I have no doubt the Chinese women used
to get some pleasure from visiting their
friends and gossiping with them in the
privacy of the women's apartments. At
any rate, their own writers give them credit
for being, in this respect, very much like
others of their sex in all countries. One
conspicuous effect of the reorganization of
China has been the coming out of women,
botli old and young, from the privacy which
was formerly forced upon them. It is not
altogether pleasing to tlieir fellow country-
men, nor to their friends in other lands
that some of the demonstrations that have
accompanied this emancipation have been
106 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of a vigorous, rather militent, kind that is
disagreeably in contrast with the reputed
modesty of the Chinese woman.
At such places as Shanghai, Hongkong,
and Singapore, where Chinese merchants
and others, who can afford to do so, have
taken to carriage driving very kindly, one
would see every afternoon at the customary
time for taking an airing in this manner,
handsome carriages in which were seated
the man himself, his wife, and sometimes
their children. One rather amusing feature
of this diversion is that not infrequently,
the coachman will be a European done up
in appropriate livery, and seeming to think
there is nothing degrading in his being the
servant of a Chinese master. This rather
anomalous spectacle is not to be witnessed
at other places, where " foreign-fashions "
have not become popular. The motor-car
is rapidly supplanting the horse-carriage,
yet as likely as not the chauffeur will be a
European.
To the credit of Chinese men of all ranks
it is pleasing to say that women were al-
ways treated with consideration and respect
whenever they were in a crowd, at the street
markets, temple gatherings, theatrical per-
formances in public, or any other occasion
when people gathered together in great
numbers.
PLEASURES OF LIFE 107
A public theatrical performance in China
used to be a matter of great importance.
Sometimes an official or a wealthy man
would engage a company of plaj-ers to give
a performance for the benefit of the public
at large. The stage would be set up at
any convenient spot (usually nearby a
temple) and the play, if one of their old-
time historical dramas, might run on con-
tinuously for days together. The perform-
ance would commence early in the morn-
ing, continue until the noon intermission
for dinner, again until supper time, and
then again until late at night or perhaps
early in the morning if an act was so pro-
longed.
To witness such a performance was one
of the few pleasures of women of the lower
classes, provided the husband did not object
to his spouse neglecting her household
duties. Often the performance would be
given in the privacj^ of a courtyard in a
dwelling house or an official residence. In
such cases the women of the family and
their invited friends would witness the play
through a bamboo curtain hung at one side
of tlie courtyards. The curtain did not al-
ways prevent this group of spectators being
seen, but it was the proper thing for the
men to see notliing of them I
For girls, there were a good many sports
108 OUE NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
and pleasures. The little girls of China
are just as fond of dolls as are our own, and
they are supplied with these treasures in
quantity and kind according to the family
means. In the house of a wealthy man the
collection of dolls is often wonderful. Un-
til the girls get to be eight or ten years of
age, they are likely to be as big " Tomboys "
as are to be seen anywhere. They play with
their brothers and boy friends in terms of
full equality. To be sure, if there is a baby
in a poor family — and there always is one !
— it will be tied to the back of an elder
sister; but that does not seem to interfere
at all with the activity of the little nurse.
If the baby loses interest in watching the
game over her bearer's shoulder, it goes to
sleep as comfortably as if it were in the
most capacious cradle ever rocked.
Until the girl is too old to romp with
bo3' s they play together — or separately if
numbers suffice, at many games that are
quite like some our children play. There
is one that is called " Selecting Fruit,"
which is quite as popular with girls as it is
with boys. Two leaders are appointed who
then choose, one by one, all the other play-
ers. Each one must take the name of a
fruit, and a leader blindfolds one of her
side. Then one of the opposite side steals
quietly out, touches the blindfolded player,
PLEASURES OF LIFE 109
and returns to her place, or — if they like
— all change positions.
The blind is now removed and " It " tries
to guess who touched her, using every arti-
fice to make the guilty one betray herself.
All her partners support her loyally, laugh
when she laughs, look blank if she does so.
After a few minutes " It " must guess : if
successful the player identified goes over to
'^ Its " side : if wrong, " It " stays with the
enemy. So the game goes on until one side
is wiped out. There is not space to give
attention to any other of these games.
The Chinese adult man takes his pleasure
in some ways that strike us as being very
odd. Kite-flying and fighting crickets, for
instance, are sports in which grown men
spend a lot of time, and they waste a good
deal of money occasionally in the latter.
Goodly sums are paid for an exceptionally
strong and pugnacious cricket ; but it is the
bets that deplete or swell the owner's purse
— in just the same Avay as the result of a
cock-fight will make or break the owners
of the two birds in tliis country or else-
where. Chinese men rarely " treat '" their
friends to samshii; but very often at a
meeting in a restaurant or on a " Flower-
boat " or at any other place, one man will
clialleiige auotlier to a drinking bout called
" Showing tlie Fist.'' Each puts one hand
110 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
behind him and then suddenly they bring
them forth each sticking out one or more
fingers, and at the same moment shouting a
number. The object is to guess the aggre-
gate number of fingers thrown out b}^ both.
But it is not the winner who gets the re-
ward; the loser must drain a tinj cup of
samshu. The similarity between this game
and the Italian mora is rather striking.
Capping verses, matching rhymes, and a
number of similar games are the relaxation
of educated men, only again it is not the
winner who is rewarded with a cup of
samshu but the loser must pay the penalty
for failure by drinking a cup.
It is a great mistake to suppose that
grown men in China know nothing about
athletics. All the officials had good train-
ing in archery and horsemanship. Many
of them, long ago, had to learn how to use
the old-time fire arm called " matchlock."
Civilians, too, were often fond of exercis-
ing in these ways.
Young men and others who were well on
towards middle age, frequently played a
game that would satisfy the most exacting
in the way of skill and activity. All know
the shape of a Chinese man's shoes, that it
has a heavy sole of felt, often two inches
thick, faced with leather and without a heel.
The game I mean, which was called " Keep-
PLEASURES OF LIFE 111
ing it in the Air," was played with a shut-
tlecock made of a piece of cork or very light
wood, with small feathers stuck into it to
make it sail true and fall properly.
The players stood in a circle, and one
tossed the shuttlecock into the air; as it
fell he struck it with the side of the sole of
one shoe and drove it towards another
player who had to strike it with his sole.
No one was permitted to touch the shuttle-
cock with his hand. If it fell upon his body,
or if he failed in the kick and the shuttle-
cock fell to the ground, the player gave a
forfeit. The forfeits were occasionally re-
deemed in somewhat the same way as in our
own games; but usually the loser had to
drink a cup of samsliu for each forfeit. If
the game was played at a private party or
social gathering, the samsliu was provided
by the host; if not, the man paid for it him-
self.
I do not know of any greater mistake
than some have made about the Chinese
lads and boys, than to say they were lacking
in games. If my statement is not accepted
let the reader refer to Dr. I. T. Headland's
a tijp Chinese Boy and Girl," and he will
be convinced that childlife in China was
never utt(^rly devoid of that pleasure which
sports give. The lads matched our boys'
" Prisoner's Base,-' only they called theirs
112 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
" Forcing the City Gates," and in playing
it they sang:
He stuck a feather in his hat
And hurried to the town
And children met him with a horse
For the gates were brolien down.
They played " Tip-cat," using a block of
wood which was tapped slightly to make it
jump into the air, and then it was struck
with a stick to drive it " out of bounds."
Of vigorous plays, calling for muscle, their
" Man-wheel " is a sample which proves that
the Chinese boys knew something more than
" sober little games." One big, strong boy
stands up as the Hub; at his sides stand
two middle-sized boys, facing in opposite
directions and clasping hands over the
Hub's shoulders. Then two quite small
boys stand outside again and face as do the
Spokes who grasp these Felloes by their
girdles. The Felloes grip the Spokes'
girdles with one hand and give the other
to the Hub around the shoulders of the
Spokes.
Now they revolve, faster and faster, until
the Felloes are lifted from their feet and
stand out nearly at right angles to the Hub.
If this game is not vigorous enough to sat-
isfy the most exacting, I do not know what
more is to be said.
PLEASURES OF LIFE 113
Since the establishment of mission schools
and colleges and now that university life is
an accomplished fact, track athletics, boat
racing, tennis, baseball, cricket, and all the
sports of the West are gaining in popularity
every day. In communities where the Eng-
lish influence predominates, cricket takes
precedence; but generally baseball is more
popular with Chinese boys and young men,
just as it is with the Japanese; and the
former play it with the same zest as the lat-
ter, although lack of practise is seen in that
Chinese players are not yet a match for
the Japanese.
CHAPTER IX
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES
THEEE seems to have been in China
from very ancient times, a sharp line
of demarcation drawn between the literati
and all classes of society below them.
There were, also, the ordinary literary men,
those who felt themselves to be officials, if
the course of events turned out happily for
them; and who were considered by all in
the lower ranks to be of the literati. Be-
tween these and the actual mandarins them-
selves, the division was not so sharply de-
fined. But there does not appear ever to
have been a time when the merchant and
the trading classes were looked upon with
the open scorn and contempt which was
shown them in Japan, certainly until the
early years of the Meiji era, and which have
not yet entirely disappeared in that country.
Because, say what we will, a civil official,
an officer of the army or navy, and all who
are not actually engaged in trade or com-
merce, do still in Japan consider themselves
to be superior to those w^ho earn money in
buying and selling. It is but a few years
ago that at my own table in Japan, a
114
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 115
wealthy banker, who had large investments
in profitable industrial enterprises, was
treated with chilly courtesy by the officials
and professors who were present, and who
probably would have been openly rude to
the " tradesman " had not they, too, been
my guests and constrained to recognize that
all my guests were entitled to courtesy.
Such invidious distinctions are not to be
noted in China, upon the few occasions
when officials, military officers, educational-
ists, and merchants meet together. It is
true that unless some special reason appears
for such a commingling of different classes,
all danger of something unpleasant occur-
ring is avoided by not calling them to-
gether. I am sure that the difference be-
tween Chinese and Japanese ways is an
effect of long experience. From time im-
memorial the Chinese have been engaged in
commercial enterprises. Their caravans
went westward and southward to meet such
companies from remote countries; and not
unfrequently the heads or proprietors of
those native caravans were entrusted with
duties that were often of a diplomatic
nature. The same thing may be said of
over-seas expeditions to the islands of the
Pacific.
In consequence, such importnnt com-
mercial men were shown a degree of re-
116 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
spectful consideration which was in a meas-
ure reflected upon all reputable members
of their class. Furthermore, the guild sys-
tem in China has for a very long period
exerted an excellent influence in keeping
Vesprit de corps up to a high standard; so
that amongst all classes of the Chinese
themselves as well as throughout the for-
eign community, the word of a reputable
merchant is considered as good as his bond.
In Japan, on the contrary, buying and
selling for profit, in other words commerce
and trade of all kinds, have always had a
bad reputation; and from the time when
the country was closed to foreigners, about
three hundred years ago, until the reopen-
ing of Japan and the entire reorganization
of all classes, the reputation of the merchant
went from bad to worse. There were no
commercial dealings with reputable foreigi>
ers to improve this state of affairs by the
force of good example.
Yet there are social lines drawn in China
and the man who ventures to disregard
them is sure to meet with a stinging re-
buke. I fancy that if a well-to-do fisher-
man should persuade a go-between to ask
the hand of a great Chinese merchant's
daughter in marriage, there would not be
mucli ceremony in sending the messenger
about his business; but if the tables were
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 117
turned, and a member of the goldsmiths'
guild at Canton should seek an alliance with
the fisherman's family, it would be responded
to and none of the goldsmiths' fellow crafts-
men would think their colleague had de-
meaned himself.
Again, if a Shanghai or Tientsin banker,
one who easily has command of several mil-
lion taels, should presume to suggest an
alliance, through marriage of his son with
the daughter of even a very humble man-
darin, there would either be a row or the
proposal would be treated with silent scorn.
Whereas, let overtures come from the man-
darin, or even a provincial viceroy, to the
banker, and all would be well. The young
woman would be accepted as a member of
the social class to which her husband be-
longed, and nothing would be said about her
previous rank or lack of it.
As an extreme example of what good, in
a certain way, this obliterating of rank
through marriage may accomplish, there are
plenty of cases on record where Avomen of
the unfortunate class have been taken to be
the concubine of some important official,
and eventually made by him his " First
Wife." Her past was absolutely ignored
and no one ever dreamed of holding it
against her.
Of course, I have been speaking of condi-
118 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
tions as they were in China until eighteen
months ago. We do not yet know- to what
extent the reorganization of that country
may go in obliterating former and time-hon-
ored distinctions of social rank.
Until within a very short time the dis-
tinguishing mark between the Chinese
themselves and the Manchus was the small
bandaged foot of the Chinese women. If
the word caste could ever have been applied
properly to the Chinese it would be appro-
priate to this custom; which results in our
opinion, as well as in that of the Manchus,
in a hideous deformity; but from Peking
southward, and gaining in influence and ex-
tent as one went towards the south, it was
a mark of gentility. Even a farmer's Avife
and daughters in Kwan-tung province felt
that they were out of their proper class if
their feet were their natural size.
I have asked many literary men to tell
me if the books gave any information as to
when this absurd custom was introduced
and why it was done; but I never got any
satisfactory information. Some said that
there was an empress of the Chang Dynasty
(1776 to 1122 B. C.) who had club-feet and
was therefore compelled to wear ill-shaped,
small shoes. She induced the emperor,
Chung-ting, to order all tlie court ladies to
compress their feet so tliat theirs might
OMKX irlfh Small Fed
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 119
look like her own. This was one story of
the origin of the custom. Another was that
Emperor Taitsong II, of the T'ang Dynasty
was infatuated with one of his concubines,
Puang-hi by name, whose vanity led her to
bind her own feet in order to enhance her
cliarms. The emperor then made it known
that all ladies should imitate the Beauty,
and thus was the custom established. But
I am sure both these stories were made to
order, and that nobody really knows the
beginning or the why and wherefore of the
repulsive custom.
The Manchus were always opposed to it;
but so long as they compelled the Chinese
men to wear the queue, they seemed to have
felt that they could not very well interfere
with what the women did. Yet a feeling
against these unnaturally small feet began
to assert itself amongst the Chinese them-
selves some years ago; and in the north es-
pecially, absurdly small feet or natural feet
do not now mark so distinctly social classes
as they did once upon a time.
There does not seem to have been in China
any time a pariah class, like tlie Eta of
Japan. If it is true tliat those unfortunate
people owe their degraded position to their
occupation of handling dead animals, pre-
paring hides for the tanner, etc., there could
not, of course, have been any similar rea-
120 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
son for the existence of such a class in
China, because the Chinese have always
been great meat eaters ; therefore slaughter-
ers and butchers were numerous, and there
was nothing repulsive about handling dead
animals.
Yet there are some very low classes in
China. The boat people of Canton are con-
sidered, and justly, to be disreputable in
every way. The similar class on the great
river of the north, Yang-tze, as well as other
streams, is similarly ostracized. Along the
coast, too, there are communities in villages
to which no reputable Chinese would dare
to go, and even the officials venture only
when supported by a gunboat. Aside from
these classes, that are outside of the pale of
good society, and the distinction of the
guilds, there is not much to say about social
classes among the common people of China.
The lines between the guilds themselves and
between them and the rest of the people
are rapidly disappearing, so that under the
good influences of reform tliat the Re-
public's government is promoting, the true
democracy of the Chinese people is likely
to reassert itself.
The fact that in China there is not yet
that mingling in general society of the two
sexes, which we are accustomed to look upon
as one of the charms of our own social in-
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 121
stitutions, must have liad a great effect.
It drove the men to seek amusement in base
ways, so that even men who were consid-
ered, in their own society, quite moral, took
part in what would scarcely be tolerated
openly among us, or if they refrained from
these they were likely to dawdle away their
time in a foolish manner. Social stratifi-
cation was quite sharp enough to prevent
the search for entertainment in the lower
grade or mental improvement in the higher.
There were not, until a few months ago
one might almost say, any political parties
in China to exert an influence upon social
classes; but the promise for the immediate
future seems to indicate that there will soon
be plenty of them. Yet secret societies have
been in existence throughout China for an
extremely long time, and in many ways
have given a good deal of trouble. They
have not marked any special class, although
they have always been a feature of Chinese
life, and in a certain sense may be consid-
ered as dividing the people of the eighteen
provinces into a class opposed to the Man-
chu rule. The first of these societies to at-
tract official attention was the famous Pih-
lien Kiao, or " White-lily Sect," which sub-
sequently changed its name to the Tien-ti
Jiu'iii, or S^nn-hoh hwni, the latter meaning
" Tlie Triad Society." Both names were
122 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
used until a comparatively short time ago,
the former in the northern provinces, the
latter in the southern, and throughout the
East Indies, wherever there was a Chinese
community.
It is not certain that the "White-lily
Sect " was actively connected with an in-
surrection which broke out in 1803, but
since the Manchu government was informed
by its secret agents that the prime object
of the society was the overthrow of that
government, it found excuse to punish the
members as constituting a dangerous class.
Amongst the oflflcials there were eight
privileged classes. The privileges of the
imperial blood and connections of the im-
perial family, as well as those of the nobil-
ity, were the only ones of importance, and
these went no further than the character of
punishment for offenders. There were a
few noblemen in the old regime , but what
their status will be under the reorganized
government remains to be seen.
Of the officials below the imperial family
and privileged nobility, there were nine
grades, each designated by a different col-
ored ball at the top of the hat, or skull cap
when such was worn, and by the embroidery
on their official robes. All literati below
the ninth grade were permitted to wear a
red ball on the hat, sometimes of coral, at
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 123
others of cord twisted into a button. This
same sort of button was often seen on the
cap of civilians, but it was always of
smaller size than that worn by the literati
and the Chinese themselves readily distin-
guished it from the badge of the scholars.
Those lowest rank literati w^ere permitted
to have an oriole embroidered on the breast
of their robes, while the unofficial members
of the famous Hanlin college might use the
egret. Tliose officials constituted a very
exclusive class, when once they had attained
their rank. Nevertheless, nominally at
least, this government service class, which
included civil and military officials, was
opened to any young man in the empire,
with certain exceptions on account of lowly,
rather degrading occupation, and other dis-
abilities which would have been held suffi-
cient to disbar him in any country.
Wliile not exactly a social class unto
themselves within the precise meaning of
this chapter's title, soothsayers, magicians,
geomancers, fortune-tellers, and all peoples
of tliose kinds, and they are very numerous
in rhina, may be considered as much for
sentiment as anything else. It was but
natural that the Chinese people, being such
confirmed ancestor worshipers as they
were and are, should wish to know how it
fares with their friends who have gone be-
124 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
fore into the mysterious land which lies at
the end of the " Yellow Road."
The priests were always willing to pro-
cure this information for their parishioners
and needless to say, the character of that
information depended largely upon the
amount of fee which the enquirer provided.
But there were others who did not belong
to the priesthood that were supposed to be
able to pierce the veil of mystery. One
most effective way of getting a direct an-
swer to an important question put to the
gods or to an ancestor, was by the use of
two pieces of wood. If a slender and rather
long spinning top, without a metal peg, is
split carefully into two equal parts they
will closely resemble the Ko-pue, the acces-
sories by which the answer sought is made
known.
After the proper god or goddess has been
decided upon, and of course a priest is of
the utmost assistance in deciding which
deity is especially competent to answer, or
is in closest relationship with the departed
ancestor, incense must be offered and a
quantity of paper money burnt to pay the
deity's fee. This money is merely some
small squares of very common paper, in the
center of which is a little dab of gold or
silver foil. Very often the metal is base,
but if the priest has been properly cared
>
SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL CLASSES 125
for with good money, the god or goddess
is easily humbugged. Of course the fee put
iuto the priest's hands is not of this im-
material kind.
At the proper moment the suppliant rises
from his knees, passes the blocks through
the smoke of the incense sticks to endow
them with mystical power, and then throws
them down in front of the idol. If the flat
surface of one comes up and that of the
other down, the answer is aflflrmative; that
is favorable. If both oval surfaces come
up, the answer is negative, unfavorable. If
both flat surfaces come up, the answer is in-
different, neither good nor bad.
Spirit-rapping, magical writing on sand
by means of a long stick influenced by a
spirit, and all the tricks of our mediums,
were known in China thousands of years
before they were used in the United States
of America. One medium frequently em-
ployed by women, anotlier woman it hardly
need be said, professed to secure informa-
tion from the spirit world by means of a
tiny image made of willow wood. This had
to be exposed to the dew for forty-nine
nights in order to endow it with its special
functions, and then when the proper caba-
listic ceremony had been performed, it was
ready for work.
The image was placed on the medium's
126 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
stomach, and the woman then went into a
trance, during which questions addressed
to the ancestor or the gods through her were
answered by the image. The trick of ven-
triloquism is not very skilfully concealed in
this performance. All people of this class
were reckoned to be outside the circle of
respectable classes; they were grouped with
actors, contortionists, and all of the kind
who entertain in those base ways.
CHAPTER X
COVET LIFE: ANCIENT AND MODERN
IT is a great pity that truth compels me
to say the record of Court life in China
as far back as we can get anything like re-
liable information concerning it, rarely
gives us a picture that is satisfactory in
any way. It has already been shown how
the dynasties of China were created, al-
ways because a preceding family of sover-
eigns had grown dissipated, weak, and
either incompetent or so thoroughly bad as
to disgust the whole people.
Of the dynasties before the time when
we are justified in speaking with some con-
fidence, it is useless to say anything. I
fear that life at the Chinese Court could
not have been very calm and secure in the
seventh century before the Christian era,
because the first of the famous Trio of
Philosophers — Lao Tze, Kong-fu Tze, and
]\Iing Tze — after holding the position of
keeper of the imperial archives, became so
dissatisfied by the disorder and riotous liv-
ing around the tlirone and the general law-
lessness of the times, that he gave up his
post and turned recluse.
127
128 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Confucius, that is Kong-fu, in the succeed-
ing century either could not or would not
put up with the sensuality and debauchery
of courts; for he too gave up in despair the
task of trying to keep rulers within bounds
of propriety, and he spent his remaining
days wandering from State to State. His
opinion of the general character of civil
rulers is illustrated by the story that once
he heard a woman weeping and lamenting
in a bamboo thicket by the side of the road.
Seeking her himself, he inquired the cause
of her grief and she said : " My father was
killed by a tiger at this spot; my only son
was likewise devoured by the same cruel
beast; and now my husband, too, has been
slaughtered in the same way." " Then why
do you not move away from this fatal spot? "
inquired the sage. " Because," answered
the woman, " save for the tiger, there is
peace here; and wherever there are officials
there is none." " My children," solemnly
said the master to his followers, " remem-
ber this, the ravages of a merciless tiger are
easier to bear than the cruelties of court-
iers."
Commencing with the dynasty that was
established by him who called himself " The
First Emperor " of China, Chwangsiang
wang, of the house of T'sin, the account of
Court life from one dynasty to another con-
COURT LIFE 129
firms entirely what I have said. Of life at
the Court in the city of Hienyang, that is
the Si-gan Fu of more recent times, which
stands on the bank of the Wei Eiver, in
Shensi province I shall speak for a moment.
Of this capital of the early T'sin Dynasty,
we get but an occasional glimpse in the old-
est writings, sufficient only to permit us
to say that it was licentious and oftentimes
cruel.
That there was splendor in a certain way
is evident from tlie fact that the palace
which Chi Hwangti built at enormous ex-
pense combined in style and proportions,
as nearly as possible, the features of all the
royal dwellings of the kings who had been
subjugated by him ; and in which he installed
all the precious furniture and property
which those princes had possessed.
But the restless monarch appears to have
derived little satisfaction from his magnif-
icent apartments, with their gorgeous con-
necting colonnades and galleries ; for being
in constant dread of the Huns, that is the
]Mong()ls, he was often at the frontier super-
intending the measures taken to keep out
those would-be invaders, and building of
the Great Wall of Cliina, which after all
did not accomplish what had been planned.
Even this monarcli's mad folly in at-
tempting to destroy the books containing
130 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
all records of the past, was unsuccessful,
for, as the historian Klaproth* says:
" They were not in fact all lost ; for in a
country where writing is so common it was
almost impossible that all the copies of
works universally respected could be de-
stroyed, especially at a time when the ma-
terial on which they were written was very
durable, being engraved with a stylus on
bamboo tablets, or traced upon them with
dark-colored, permanent varnish."
This great " First Emperor " was an ab-
ject coward in some ways. His supersti-
tious dread of death was so great that he
was forever calling upon his magicians to
discover a magical liquor that would at
least give him a long life, if it did not secure
for him human immortality. One of the
magicians told him he was under the influ-
ence of malign spirits, who were constantly
pursuing him with the design of killing him
and getting possession of his soul to tor-
ment it. This charlatan told his imperial
master that the only way he could escape
those fiends, was to sleep in a different room
of his palace every night, and that he must
not, in any circumstances, let it be known
beforehand which room he was going to oc-
cupy during the succeeding night.
This awful declaration filled Chi Hwangti
* Klaproth, J., Mcmoires sur I'Asie.
COURT LIFE 131
with consternation, and the outcome was
the palace which has been mentioned, con-
taining — besides the gorgeous halls and
and state apartments — so many bedrooms
that a stranger would have been lost in
wandering through them. The Emperor's
wish was to mystify the evil-minded de-
mons; but since Chinese are not usually so
ingenuous as this, some of the writers inti-
mate that the multiplicity of sleeping
apartments was for the purpose of accommo-
dating the great retinue of concubines and
ladies in waiting.
There is little wonder that the Chinese
philosophers and historians dilate upon the
immoral influence of dissolute women at
the courts of their rulers ; for they were the
cause of the downfall of many a dynasty.
Yet it was not because the women them-
selves were disposed to see the dynasty fall,
but the rulers themselves who became effete,
incompetent, and careless.
Nor was it altogether and only at the im-
perial court that this deplorable state of
affairs existed. In the time of the Han
Dynasty, that which succeeded T'sin, and
of which the Chinese were so proud that
they delighted to call themselves " Men of
ITan," an immense army of Hsiung-nu,
^Mongols or ITun Tartars, made their way
round the western end of the Great Wall,
132 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
and invaded what is now tlie province of
Sze-chuen, from which they were returning
with immense booty. Emperor Kao Ti led
an army in pursuit, but the Mongols turned
the tables upon him and he was compelled
to seek shelter in P'ing (probably Ping-liang
Fu, in Kansuh province), a city of Shansi,
and the besiegers were on the point of ef-
fecting an entrance.
Then Kao Ti, knowing the weakness of
kings in his part of the world certainly,
caused a number of life-sized dolls to be
dressed like the most beautiful of the Chi-
nese maidens, and these he posted along the
walls where they could be seen by the enemy.
Then he sent a secret message to the wife
of the Hun chief to say that these charming
maidens were to be presented to her hus-
band. The artifice was entirely successful ;
the wife's jealousy was aroused and to pre-
vent her husband being enamored of the
charms of those Chinese beauties, she com-
pelled him to raise the siege and retire to
his own side of the Great Wall.
What a pity it is tliat the whole record
of the Great Han Dynasty could not be in
keeping with the beginning thereof. In the
court of the great sovereigns of the dynasty
there was splendor and there was doubt-
less a great deal of dissipation, nevertlieless
the character of Court life was not always
COURT LIFE 133
conspicuously dissolute in the earlier years
of their rule. But the downfall of the glo-
rious dynasty is marked by the appearance
of three men. who. are known as the three
greatest traitors in Chinese history. These
were Wang Mang, Tung-cho, and Ts'ao
Ts'ao.
The first' was an unscrupulous minister
of Emperor P'ing Ti (A. D. 1 to 6) at the
very beginning of the Christian era, it will
be noted. He w^as weak, inefficient and his
court licentious. Wang Mang plotted the
usurpation of the throne for himself. At
the New Year's Day reception he appeared
with the imperial Princes and other court-
iers to pay his respects to the Emperor, and
the traitor put poison into his master's cup.
P'ing Ti was seized with violent paroxysms
of pain and soon died in great agony. Wang
Mang feigned grief so skilfully that every-
body was deceived and he was able to carry
out his traitorous plans.
At his suggestion a child only two years
of age was raised to the throne, and Wang
Mang was appointed Eegent of the baby
Emperor, Ju Tzu Ying (G to 9 A. D.). It
was but a short time until the traitor showed
his hands, and having control of the army,
the older i)rinces and loyal followers of the
House of Han could do notliing, so that
Wang Mang had liis own way completely.
134 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
The baby Emperor Ju Tzu Ying was per-
mitted to occupy the throne, nominally, for
three years and then he was calmly set aside,
Wang Mang openly assuming the title of
" New Emperor." He declared that he had
had a vision in which Kao Ti, the founder of
the dynasty, had given consent to his ac-
cession; this was a common subterfuge in
China not only then but until quite recent
times, and it is astonishing how successful
the ruse often was.
There followed a period of rebellion and
trouble, until at last the traitor was de-
feated in battle and fled. He was pursued,
however, captured and promptly beheaded;
his body was cut into a thousand pieces and
his head exposed in the market place of
Ch'ang-an, the city where he had tried to
hide himself. Then the Han Dynasty was
restored in a sense, although the new em-
perors, not being in the direct line, that
particular branch is called thereafter The
Later or Eastern Han.
The second of those unsavory characters,
Tung Cho, was a general who seized the im-
perial power for himself, dethroned the
reigning monarch, and placed a boy Prince
upon the throne; the cliild was Hsien Ti,
who reigned from A. D. 190 to 291. The
opportunity that played into Tung Cho's
hands was the confusion tliat reigned at
COUET LIFE 135
Court because of an attempt on the part of
a faction to massacre the imperial eunuchs.
Hsien Ti being weak, both mentally and
physically, his Prime Minister, Tung Cho,
actually ruled the empire. Nominally pro-
fessing to give his acts an appearance of
legality by declaring them to be always with
the consent and approval of the puppet em-
peror, yet his lying provoked dissatisfaction
on all sides and at last he was slain by one
of his own officers. His death brought no
relief to the country, or peace at Court.
The third of the notorious traitors, Ts'ao
Ts'ao appeared before the capital, Ch'ang-
an, and seized the throne. This act was the
prelude to the confusion of the period
known as " The Three Kingdoms." The
interesting period in Chinese history came to
an end with the fall of that man who, be-
cause of his own love of dissipation and the
dissoluteness of his court, has been given
the title " Duke of Pleasure."
Thus the record of all the dynasties is but
a repetition of the same story. According
to the Chinese sages, so long as rulers are
wise, discreet, and abstemious. Heaven
prospers them. When they swerve from
the path of duty. Heaven promptly brings
forward an usurper and tlie dynasty is
changed. Even the glorious T'aiig dynasty
which has alwavs seemed to me to stand for
136 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
the highest glory of the old Chinese em-
pire, although it had some wonderful rulers
in its long list for it commenced to reign in
618 A. D. and passed away with Liang Chu-
tien in 923 A. D,, or if we include the after
T'ang, in 936 A. D,, yet T'ang came to an
end in the usurpation of the throne by a
common adventurer named Chu Wen. He
displayed no marked ability and the only
thing which enabled him to grasp the reins
of government, was the absolute weakness of
the last legitimate sovereign of the house
of T'ang, and the terrible confusion which
existed at Court because of the contending
factions.
The patronage which most of the Sung
Emperors extended to arts and letters lends
to their dynasty a semblance of aesthetic
glory which is attractive. It is indis-
putably true that the cultured arts throve
during the time from A, D. 9G0 to 1279,
when this dynasty ruled over China. Life
at Court for the most part was an attractive
mixture of state affairs and dilettante dab-
bling with painting, poetry, and pottery.
Yet again it was the inlierent weakness
of tlie monarchs and the dissolute Court life
which brought the downfall of that great
Chinese dynasty. For had there been com-
petent rulers, possessing tlie confidence of
all their subjects, this dynasty and tlie sue-
COURT LIFE 137
ceeding allied one of the Southern Sung
would probably not have succumbed to the
invading Mongols, who in 1260 A. D., estab-
lished the Yuen (commonly known as the
Mongol) Dynasty.
It was during the reign of these aliens
that the Polos visited China and were im-
pressed by the pomp and splendor of the
Oriental Capital, Cambaluc, or Peking as
we know it. They were amazed at the mag-
nificence which was displayed, and which
was something they had not dreamed could
exist. Feasts and the dynastic as well as the
national commemorations were celebrated
with a prodigality that surpassed the wildest
imagination of those Venetians, who were
not altogether unaccustomed to display on
such occasions.
There were such conspicuous evidences of
civilization in the Court and in the adminis-
tration of affairs, that the strangers were
led to make comparisons which were just
as unfavorable to Europe, as changed con-
ditions three centuries later led the people
of America and Europe to look upon Cliina
as being altogether behind the times and ab-
surdly conservative.
In addition to the seemingly inevitable
degeneration of tlie Cliinese rulers, in yield-
ing to the temptations of license of all kinds,
there was a special reason for the downfall
138 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of the Mongols. All offices witliin the gift
of the sovereign, whether purely civil or com-
bining military duties with those of civil
administration, were given to Mongols to
the exclusion of native Chinese. The for-
mer method of time-honored sanctity, of con-
ferring rank according to literary qualifi-
cations was ignored, and the true Chinese
literati began to complain. Their conten-
tion for a proper share in these offices was
supported by sufficient of the people of the
eighteen provinces to enable Chu Yuen-
chang to expel the Mongols and establish
the Ming, " Bright Dynasty."
This was the last truly Chinese House that
ruled over the people of the Empire. Again,
however, degeneracy marked the rulers, and
in 1644 the T'sing, " Pure Dynasty," of the
Manchus was seated upon the throne of the
Chinese Empire and there remained until
1912. The vicissitudes of this dynasty
have formed the subject of so many works
that it is unnecessary to rehearse the story
here. There were good and there were bad
rulers. At times life at the Imperial Court
was marked by extravagant ostentation
which was amazing and thoroughly distaste-
ful to the majority of the Chinese; at other
times, so we are told, retrenchment and sim-
plicity were carried to the extreme of parsi-
mony, which likewise created a very bad
COURT LIFE 139
impression amongst those who were asso-
ciated with the government.
It would hardly be fair to say that gradual
deterioration w^as a marked characteristic
of the Manchu dynasty, for as a matter of
fact, the very last adult emperor evinced
ability which would probably have saved his
House, had he been permitted to live and to
carrj' out his plans for reform. Yet it must
be added that it would have been necessary
for Kwang Ilsii to surround himself with
more discreet advisers than some of those
to whom he was disposed to listen. Unless
such a course could have been pursued, the
wreck of the Manchu dynasty was scarcely
to have been prevented.
Of the great Empress Dowager, it is right
to say she showed at times singular ability
in matters of state; at other times incom-
prehensible lack of policy and intelligence;
but of her personal life it is wise to say
little, because there are most conflicting
stories told about her in this respect. There
are at tlie sen'ice of those who wish to study
the subject of Court life during recent years,
at least two books which may be specially
recommended : namely, Princess Der Ling's
" Two Years in the Forbidden City " and
Dr. Headland's " Court Life in China."
The former gives an account from the in-
side; tlie latter gives impressions from the
outside as well as some esoteric experiences.
CHAPTER XI
THE PEOPLE OF THE EIGHTEEN
PROVINCES
THESE are the people who are truly the
Chinese. Whether they were born
on the soil they have occupied for certainly
more than twenty-five centuries, or whether
they came from the north, the west, or the
southwest, is now a matter of small impor-
tance to any but the ethnologist who iuvsists
upon probing into corners so filled with the
dust of ages as to be repulsive to the ordi-
nary reader.
Yet there is one statement made about
these Chinese which seems to me to be a
misapprehension. It relates to what is
called their oblique eyes. One writer, who
should be an authority', although some of
us do not recognize him as such, states that
the four corners of a pair of eyes, as shown
in the most ancient pictorial or sculptural
representation in Europe, may be joined
by one horizontal straight line; whereas
straight lines drawn through the eyes of the
oldest Chinese appropriate hieroglyphic
cross each other at a sharp angle.
This is true only so far as it relates to a
140
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 141
picture; but inasmucli as it seems to imply
a difference in the angle of the eye sockets,
in the West and in the East, it is misleading.
An examination of Chinese skulls shows
that the eye sockets are set in precisely the
same way as in the Caucasian skull ; the ap-
pearance of obliquity is due solely to the
fact that the inner corner of each upper eye-
lid is drawn down somewhat. Yet it is
strange how proud the Chinese seem to be
of what, in our opinion, constitutes almost
a deformity, for in all of their graphic arts
this unusual arrangement of the eyelids is
actually exaggerated.
In this country we have seen men wearing
the pigtail and dressed in petticoats; and
women wearing trousers, and we have called
them all Chinese. Well, tliat is quite as
correct as for the people of France to call
every man who speaks English, un Anglais.
But setting aside the difference between
Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, and
the men from Dzungaria or Eastern Turkes-
tan, there are some surprising differences
to be noted in Cliinese who come from neigh-
boring provinces; while those who come
from provinces far apart, are as different
as is the Xew Englander, wliose forbears
liave l)een in this country for generations,
from the ranchman of mixed blood on the
Texan frontier.
142 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
One does not have to be long in Hongkong
to note the difference between a fairly tall,
strong Swatow chair-coolie and the light
weight, weak Cantonese. The people from
the lower Yang-tze will not long be con-
fused with those from up the valley towards
tlie Ichang Gorge, by the visitor who looks
about him carefully.
In the matter of language, the difference
between the people of the different prov-
inces — and sometimes between those who
inhabit the same province — is astonishing.
I ought, no doubt, to use the word " dialect "
instead of " language " ; but when you find
that an uneducated person or even a fairly
intelligent merchant from Swatow has about
as much difficulty in making himself under-
stood in Canton, as w^ould a Kentish farmer
who crossed the Straits of Dover and tried
to converse with the Normandy peasants in
France, you are disposed to imj that in this
respect the difference seems to be greater
than simply that of dialect.
Yet, of course, the language is fundamen-
tally the same in Kwan-tung province, in
the extreme southeast, as it is in Shantung,
in tlie northeast, or Kansuh, far away in
the nortliwest. Words differ in pronun-
ciation, at first, and this difference increases
until tliere result two words, having ideu-
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 143
tical meaning, but possessing not the most
remote resemblance in sound.
All this applies to the spoken language.
In literature there is practically no such
difference. Books, the famous Classics, for
instance, have been printed in what for-
eigners have called the Mandarin dialect.
That means simply that the language and
locutions of literary men at the capital have
been adopted as the standard for the printed
language. Every educated man in the
eighteen provinces understands the Classics
as he reads them ; and his neighbors who are
equally fortunate in education, will under-
stand him as he reads aloud. But the
locally trained school man of Yunnan would
be totally incomprehensible to his fellow
from Chihli.
Newspapers, likewise, are not necessarily
intelligible to people of remote districts from
the place of publication, because localisms
are quite as common in China as they are
in any other part of the world. The famous
^' Peking Gazette," that was for centuries
the only thing in tlie empire entitled
to be called a newspaper, was the official
organ of the Government, and it was raul
hy officials, the literati, and educated men
ill all ])arts of tlie country. It contained
no '' news " liowever.
144 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Besides his speech, " that doth bewray
him/' there is something about the physical
appearance of the people of the eighteen
provinces, which seems to differentiate them
from those of the remoter parts of even ad-
jacent provinces ; while every man in China
knows at a glance whether the stranger is
from the east, west, south, or north. The
way in which the men used to have their
head shaved and the queue braided; the
material and cut of their clothes, especially
the style of their footwear, betrayed the
visitor from a remote section.
Amongst the women there were unmis-
takable differences in the way the hair was
dressed, as well as in the shape and fashion
of their clothing. I am speaking now of the
people of China proper exclusively; in the
proper place these distinguishing peculiar-
ities of Manchus, Turkestanese, and all the
others, will be discussed.
In occupation, there was a wide difference
between the people of the various provinces.
In the silk district, it is imperatively neces-
sary that the workmen shall become ac-
customed to the local way of doing things
by long observation, before he is permitted
to take upon himself the entire responsi-
bility of the delicate operations of feeding
the worms, cleaning the trays in which they
are fed and allowed to make their cocoons.
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 145
Then when the time for reeling off the floss
comes, each locality has its own peculiar
method. An expert Chinese needs no label
to teach him whence comes a hank of floss
silk.
The tea pickers of the Fuhkien Province,
seaport Foochow, do their work in a different
way from those in the larger districts which
contribute to the business of Hankow on
the Yang-tze River; and after the leaves
have been gathered, dried, fired, and packed,
he is but a poor Chinese who cannot tell
after his first sip whence came the tea from
which the infusion was drawn.
We think, and quite properly, of rice as
being the staple article of diet for our Chi-
nese neighbors, but there are many different
ways of preparing this vegetable for the
table. I mean the seemingly simple act of
boiling the grain, and I think I may almost
say that each province has its own rule. In
some it is boiled quickly with the express
purpose of making it somewhat difficult to
digest, so that the hard-working coolies and
laborers may not too quickly assimilate their
rice and become hungry before the time has
come for the next meal. In other places it
is steamed so admirably that while each
puff'y grain is separate, yet tliey are like
independent snowflakes.
Tliis matter of rice cooking; recalls to mind
146 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
the Chinese gourmet. Please note that I
distinguish carefully between the gourmand,
who eats voraciously of pretty much any-
thing that is set before him, seeming to have
in mind quantity rather than qualitj' ; and
the gourmet, the lover of good things to eat
but who nevertheless makes a dainty dis-
crimination as to what he will eat.
Because we may have seen a group of
Chinese around a table, on which there are
platters or bowls of queer looking stews
and vegetables, shoveling the rice into their
mouths from little bowls held in the left
hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other,
we are not to assume that all their fellow
countrymen are satisfied to do the same thing
with similarly coarse food. Our Chinese
gourmet has as keen a palate, in his way, as
has his French congener. Perhaps he likes
to eat salted earthworms, and that is about
as repulsive a. dish as I know, yet the Chi-
nese gourmet insists upon having his worms
prepared in just the right way.
Our beefsteak and onions may not appeal
to some of our friends; yet it is not every
cook who can prepare this dish to suit the
taste of the fastidious. Our French neigh-
bors like snails, only the animals must have
been properly fed and skilfully cooked as
well as served to appeal to the true French
gourmet. So with our Eussian friends,
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 147
they like to preface a liearty meal with a
zakushld, which seems to mauy of us a meal
in itself. The preliminary of cold marrow-
bones, pickled herrings, salted eels, caviare^
and thirty or forty other cold appetizers,
serve to stimulate the Muscovite palate,
while it so satisfies the stranger, unaccus-
tomed to it, that there is no room for the suc-
ceeding dinner, a la course!
Our Chinese gourmet seems to know as
well, by intuition it almost seems, although
it is usually with him just as it is with our-
selves a matter of experience or inquiry,
where to go for the best birdnest's soup, and
which chef can serve sea-slugs in the most
tempting manner. Is it surprising to be
told that there is such a thing as the culi-
nary art in China? Why should it be?
Now that the Chinese are coming to be
greater travelers than ever before, because
of the facility accorded by railways and
steamers, it is not at all an uncommon thing
for the people of Kwan-tung who go to
Chilili, to seek in the national capital,
Peking, for the restaurant that will cater to
their peculiar tastes. Just as our own lover
of terrapin a la Marj/Jand, would not be
satisfied in New York or Cliicago uidess he
knew his honnc houcJie is going to ])e served
in tlie projier way.
The most ehi])orate native entertainment
148 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
I ever attended was the " house-warming "
given by the Taoutai of Chowchow fu, when
he had completed his new yamen (official
residence ) at Swatow. As I was only a lad,
fresh from home, his lordship asked the con-
sular representatives of the Great Powers,
if he might infringe the rule of precedence
and put me on his left (the post of honor)
for he had been told I could converse with
him in Chinese. The consuls gave unani-
mous consent and the great Mandarin
treated me to dainty morsels which he
picked out of the common dish with his own
chopsticks (Avithout rinsing those useful
implements in water after they had been in
his own mouth), and poked them into my
mouth. But of such details I do not care
to speak.
Our host was a thorough Chinese gourmet,
and some of the junior officials attached to
his Court, told me he had sent to Can-
ton for a cook and his assistants, and that
most of the materials for the feast had been
brought from different places, according as
the locality was famous for this or that deli-
cacy. This, I afterwards learned, was not
at all an unusual thing to do.
Our Chinese neighbors are as a rule well
built and symmetrical, and I think that in
these respects they showed to advantage
when contrasted with our Japanese neigh-
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 149
bors. I imagine the difference is partly
due to the fact that the Chinese have never
been accustomed to squatting on the floor,
resting the buttocks on the heels, as the
Japanese have done for ages. A result of
this sincariy as it is called in Japan, was to
check the development of the lower limbs,
making the Japanese appear to be dispro-
portionately short-legged. I may remark
that the tendency to abandon this habit and
make greater use of chairs, forms at schools,
etc., is having a beneficial result ; the stature
of the Japanese is said to have increased an
inch or more within the past thirty or forty
years, the period during which the better
habits of sitting rather than squatting has
become popular.
We may properly say that the Chinese
have a yellowish tint, and that, as a rule,
they rarely show much pink or red color in
the face. This is not strictly true of chil-
dren who run about a great deal in the open
air. Some of the little girls have a dainty
coloring that makes them very pretty. If
exposure to the sun has given to some of the
Chinese in the south a swarthy tint, they
never approach a black color, and one of the
most inept, and offensive, words to apply to
the Chinese is " nigger."
Cliiiiese women of the upper classes who
seldom go outside their homes, unless shel-
150 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
tered from the glare and from the public
gaze as well, in a curtained or jalousied se-
dan chair, or protected from the sun's rays
by an umbrella, are often of a very fair com-
plexion. As a rule, the yellow tint nearly
disappears in children born to mixed par-
ents, one of whom is a Caucasian.
We know that the hair on the head of a
Chinese is coarse and black, at least if it is
not absolutely jet black it is of such a very
deep brown tint that it seems to be black;
and the way the people dress their hair and
the use of cosmetics by the women tend to
deepen the color. Of beards and whiskers
the men have scarcely any, and both sexes
have very little hair on the body.
It was the custom, as invariable as an un-
written law, for the men to shave the face
completely until they had attained the dig-
nity of being a grandfather, or had gained
certain distinctions in the literary class.
In the former case the grandfather might
permit his mustaches to grow although these
were often what our lovers of slang would
call " a ball game ; that is nine on a side."
In the latter case, since the distinction
rarely came until the man was well on in
years, a growth of hair on the face was as-
sumed to indicate an old man, hence in the
south, such men were called laii elm nung,
that is, " old hair men.''
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 151
Since the Chinese were accustomed to see-
ing only black hair and eyes, it was but nat-
ural that the light or auburn hair and blue
eyes of many Europeans should seem un-
canny. In the graphic art of the Chinese
(as is the case in Japan also) devils are de-
picted as having red or blue bodies and fiery
red hair; therefore it was but natural that
the first blonde Europeans were called ang
mail Jciii, " red-haired devils," or fan kwei,
" foreign devils,"
Inasmuch as ancient history teaches us
that the immigrating Chinese In the re-
mote past, intermarried with the aboriginal
peoples whom tliey found to the south of
the Mei-]ing spur of the great Yun-ling
range of mountains, while those who did
not come that far remained more or less
unmixed in the Great Plain of Central Asia,
or even in the western part of what is now
Shansi Province, there is a noticeable dif-
ference between the mixed population of the
soutli, if I may call them so, and the pure
type ; the latter are the finer looking in every
way.
The almost total lack of a bridge to the
nose, and tlie fact that the eyes seem to be
so full and nearly level witli the forehead as
to l)e ratlier protruding, emphasizes the dif-
ference between tlie Cliinese and the Cau-
casian, and added sometliing to the an-
152 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
tipathy whicli the natives at first felt for
the unhuman looking beings who had
sunken blue eyes.
It is somewhat surprising that there
should be in the extreme eastern part of
the great province of Kwan-tung, a group
of people in Chowchow fit, prefecture, who
compare favorably in stature and propor-
tions with the men from north of the Yang-
tze River. Williams says : " A thousand
men taken as they come in the streets of
Canton, would hardly equal in stature and
weight the same number in Rome or New
Orleans, while they would, perhaps, exceed
those, if gathered in Peking; their muscu-
lar powers, however, would probably be less
in either Chinese city than in those of
Europe or America."
I should not like to extol very highly the
beauty of the Chinese women, nevertheless
they are not totally devoid of physical
charms. When the health is good and while
a girl is young, her face is far from being
repulsive. One admirable effect of the
recent willingness to become a part of the
world and not to be merely in it, has been
a gradual disc-ontinuance of the abomina-
ble habit Chinese women followed of shav-
ing the face right up to the lower eyelids.
The inevitable effect was to make the skin
like leather and to stimulate the develop-
PEOPLE OF THE PROVINCES 153
ment of wrinkles. In one respect our
Chinese women neighbors are more like
Europeans than are their sisters in India
and southwestern Asia. They do not fade
so soon and become withered, but bear chil-
dren and retain their vigor almost as do
the Caucasians.
CHAPTER XII
THE MONGOLS AND THE MANCHUS
^^T?ROM an obscure and uncertain be-
-t^ ginning, the word Mongol has gone
on in increasing significance and spread-
ing geographically, during more than ten
centuries, until it has filled the whole earth
with its presence. From the time when
men first used it until our day this word
has been known in three senses especially.
In the first sense it refers to some small
groups of hunters and herdsmen living
north of the great Gobi desert; in the sec-
ond it denotes certain peoples in Asia and
Eastern Europe; in the third and most re-
cent, a world-wide extension has been given
it. In tills third and the broad sense, the
word Mongol has been made to include in
one category all yellow skinned nations, or
peoples, including those too with a reddish-
brown, or dark tinge in the ^-ellow, having
also straight hair, always black, and dark
eyes of various degrees of intensity. In
tins sense the word Mongol co-ordinates
vast numbers of people, immense groups of
men who are like one another in some traits,
and widely dissimilar in others. It em-
154
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 155
braces tlie Chinese, the Koreans, the Japa-
nese, the Manchus, the original Mongols
with their near relatives the Tartar, or
Turkish tribes which hold Central Asia, or
most of it. Moving westward from China
this term covers the Tibetans and with them
all the non-Aryan nations and tribes until
we reach India and Persia."
When I find that another writer has said
something that I know to be true, but has
expressed himself better or more succinctly
than I can, I feel that I am doing my read-
ers a favor and paying the more expert au-
thor a deserved compliment by borrowing
his words. This is my reason for begin-
ning this chapter with the first paragraph of
Jeremiah Curtin's book.* Some historians
say there are five groups of Mongols who
have made themselves famous in Europe;
although I should be disposed to use the
word " infamous " in describing the Huns
under their chief Attila, the Bulgars, the
Magyars, the Turks or Osmanli, and the
Mongol invaders of Russia. Other author-
ities say there have been Mongol people in
Africa from a remote past and that their
descendants are still to be found there.
This may be true, but I am inclined to doubt
the correctness of the assertion that the
Mamelukes were recruited from the Mon-
* The Mongols: A History.
156 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
gols. It has always seemed to me that
this force was originally made up from
Christian captives who were compelled to
serve their Turkish captors as soldiers, and
afterwards their ranks were recruited from
Christian families who were living in Turk-
ish possessions.
The etymology of the word Mongol is a
little interesting. During the reign of the
great T'ang Dynasty of China, the term
Mong-lcu appears as applied to the people
north of the Empire, and in the records of
the Ki-tan Dynasty which followed the
T'ang the same people are described by the
word Mong-hu-li. After the Ki-tans came
the Golden Khans, and in their annals the
Mong-Jcu are often mentioned.
As is the case with so many peoples, the
origin of the family into which the great
Gengliis Khan was born, was miraculous.
A blue wolf and a gray doe swam across
a lake — it may be that Baikal is intended
— and settled near the sources of the river
Onon. A human son, Batachi, was born
to them, and then later, after many genera-
tions, another miracle was wrought. A
widow, wlio had had two sons by her hus-
band, after his death bore yet three more
sons, although there was no man in the
yurta save a slave whom her husband had
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 157
bought of a poor wandering beggar for a leg
of venison.
The two sons by the widow's lawful hus-
band consulted together and said : " Our
mother has no husband, no brother of our
father has ever been in this yurta, still she
has had three sons since our father died.
There is only one man in the house, he has
lived with us always; is he not their
father? " The woman having learned
what the two elder brothers were thinking
and saying, called them together and gave
to each one an arrow, telling them to
break it. This of course each one did eas-
ily. Then she tied tlie five arrows together
and asked each to try to break the bundle;
this they were unable to do. Then she said :
" Ye are in doubt as to who is the father
of my third, fourth and fifth sons. Ye
wonder, and with reason, for ye know not
that a golden-hued man makes his way to
this yurta. lie enters through the door by
which light comes, he enters in through the
smoke-hole like sunshine. The brightness
which comes from him fills me when I look
at him. Going off on the rays of the sun
or the moon he runs like a swift yellow
dog till he vanishes. Cease talking idly.
Your three youngest brotliers are children
of Heaven, and no one may liken them to
158 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
common men. When they are khans ye
will know this." It is singular how widely
prevalent this or a similar myth is.
We are not here interested in the Mon-
gols as a whole, but with a very definite
part of them. The Tartar legend tells us
that in the period which corresponds to
the year 1161 of the Christian era, a woman
gave birth to a son, who was grasping in
his fists a lump of dark, clotted blood.
This event happened at the time when one
Temujin Uge, a Tartar, was captured;
therefore the child was given the name Te-
mujin.
He later completely subdued the various
peoples in his immediate neighborhood
along the upper courses of the Onon Eiver,
which you will find on any really good map
of Asia, at about 110° East Longitude from
Greenwich, and 48° North Latitude. Only
a short distance west, among the Chamur
Mountains or the Kentai Shan, are the
headwaters of the Kerulen River, another
stream which is intimately connected with
the early history of the Mongols ; and in the
same mountainous district the Tula and
Orhon Rivers rise; these last mentioned
empty into Lake Baikal and thus find their
way into the Arctic Sea nearly opposite the
Island of Nova Zembia; while the Onon
and Kerulen eventually become the great
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 159
Amur River and tlius reach the Pacific.
There, within reach of any one of these
streams, is the site which all Mongols honor
as having been the birthplace of Genghis
Khan and where his tomb is planted.
When Temujin had conquered his way to
fame, he took that name, Genghis Khan,
and raised his wonderful standard of nine
white (yak?) tales. Genghis means
" Mighty," while Khan is, of course, a title
having the significance of Emperor, and the
seeming proper name of Genghis was
adopted to distinguish this man from all the
other Khans.
Many interesting legends are told of this
personage who was to have such a tremen-
dous influence upon the fortunes of our
Chinese neighbors, and some of them are
given here. When the lad, Temujin, was
in his fifteenth year and it seemed time to
think of getting a wife for him, his father,
Yessugai, went into the countiy from which
the boy's mother, Iloelun, had been taken
by capture. In the mountains he met a
man named Desai-chan, who was of the
Uigar stock.
This apparent stranger hailed Yessugai
by name and asked whither he was going.
The answer was : " I am going to take my
son to his mother's brothers in order to se-
lect a wife for him." Desai-chan said:
160 OUR neighbors: the CHINESE
" Your son hath a comely face and bright
eyes. Last night I dreamt that a white
falcon, holding the sun and the moon in its
talons, flew down to my wrist and perched
there. Thereupon I exclaimed to some of
my neighbors who were with me, ' We know
the sun and moon only through our seeing
them; but now this white falcon has
brought them both down to me in its talons ;
this must be an omen of greatness.' Just
at this auspicious moment thou has come,
O Yessugai! with thy son; and thy coming
explains my dream, it foretells high for-
tune, undoubtedly. I have a daughter at
my yurta, she is yet young and small; but
do come and look at her."
Then Desai-chan led Yessugai and Temu-
jin to his camp. Yessugai was greatly
pleased with the appearance of the girl, who
truly was a young beauty. She was then
but ten years old, and even among the Mon-
gols, whose maidens wed very young, was
hardly ready to be given in marriage. Yet
the very next day Yessugai asked Desai-
chan to allow Bortai, that was the girl's
name, to become the bride of young Temu-
jin.
Desai-chan's reply was both courteous
and diplomatic. " If I give her only after
much importuning, will that indicate a
larger measure of importance? Or if I
M
AX( III' Woman in Full Dress
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 161
give her to your son in answer to a few
words, will that show slight esteem? We
know that a girl is not born to remain in
her father's home forever. I give my con-
sent to Bortai's becoming Temujin's wife;
but I pray thee to leave the lad with me for
a time."
So Yessugai left Temujin with Desai-chan
and rode off towards his own home, but on
the way he was persuaded by some Tartars
to stop for a feast with them. These men
were his enemies, although they professed
for the moment to be friendly, because he
had killed many of their people, Temujin
Uge amongst the number. Therefore they
put poison into Yessugai's cup, and although
he managed to travel for three days and
reach his home, yet he died before his son
Temujin could be brought to him.
Before long, Temujin launched out upon
that career which eventually made him
" The Mighty Khan." He passed through
a stormy youth and early manhood, and
was often within an inch of death's door;
but by marvelous escapes, and frequently
tlirough the assistance of friends whom he
gained in strange ways, he overcame every
opposition.
To those who stood in his way, or whom
he suspected of opposition he was abso-
lutely merciless. A brother, a half-brother,
162 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
or any relative or connection who baulked
his way, was as of little account to him as a
mangy dog. But to his friends he was by
no means without willingness to make his
gratitude something tangible. When he
had built his great Empire, he richly re-
warded those w^ho had helped him in the
task.
When the proper time came for Genghis
Khan to carry out his plan of invading
China he found himself, as a matter of
fact, attacking the famous " Golden Dy-
nasty," the Kin, which had been driven out
by the Ki-tans. When the Kin Emperor
died in November, 1209, his successor sent
an ambassador to inform Genghis Khan of
the death and the succession. This ambas-
sador had the impudence to order the
Great Khan to receive the message kneel-
ing; for the envoy claimed that Genghis
was a vassal, and should comport himself
in accordance with Chinese etiquette.
At this piece of audacity Genghis de-
manded: "Who is this new emperor?"
The reply was, with a display of honorific
titles which may be imagined, " Prince
Chong-hei." When Genghis heard the
name he was simply furious, and turning
his face towards the south, in which direc-
tion the new upstart dwelt, he spat upon
the ground and exclaimed : " I thought that
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 163
the Son of Heaven must be lofty and un-
common ; but how is this idiot Cliong-hei to
sit on a throne, and why shouhl I lower
myself even in his presence, much less to
his petty ambassador?"
Preparations for the invasion were speed-
ily completed and the composition of the
army indicates most clearly what efiflcient
strategists and commissaries those Mongol
leaders were. The troops were divided in-
to squads of ten each; ten of these squads
were formed into one company; ten com-
panies composed what we may call a regi-
ment; and t«n regiments, that is to say,
ten thousand warriors, made a brigade.
The orders of the supreme Khan were
given direct to the generals in command of
brigades; and by them passed to officers of
lower rank until they reached even to the
petty squad.
Each soldier wore armor made of strong
rawhide and his head was protected by a
stout helmet of similar material. His weap-
ons were a lance, a sabre, a bow and
quiver, while some of them bore, in addi-
tion, an ax which could be used in battle
as well as to cut wood as necessity arose.
1 besides the liorses supplied for the troops
tliere were many extra steeds, because the
army, after leaving headquarters, had to
cross a wide stretch of tlie desert. Tlie in-
164 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
vaders probably took a route that was
nearly parallel to the great caravan road
that has been used by the Chinese and Rus-
sians in passing between Peking and Lake
Baikal.
After a march of something like twelve
hundred miles the frontier was reached,
and here became conspicuous the first of the
defections which, contributed so much to
the downfall of the Chinese government.
The officer in charge of the guard at the
Great Wall yielded allegiance to Genghis
Khan and opened the gates to the invading
army. It is not necessary here to recapitu-
late the story of the downfall of the Chinese
Dynasty and the establishment of the Mon-
gols.
Tliis great country, Mongolia, stretches
from the west, where it marches with the
Russian Central Asia provinces, eastward
between Siberia and Tibet and China
proper, until it reaches the Eastern Three
Provinces, which we know by the name of
Manchuria. Most of Mongolia is, to say
the least, unattractive. But from about
the middle of the northern line towards the
east and stretching down to the Chinese
frontier the character of the soil improves,
and in the extreme eastern section there are
wide grassy plains whicli are well suited to
maintain enormous flocks and herds; while
l.\( nr (,r!s}ia
THE MONGOLS AND MANCHUS 165
along the numerous streams there is abun-
dant arable land.
Of the Manchurians it is not necessary
to say very much, because they are, after all,
merely an offshoot of the great Tartar or
Mongolian Horde. Their history is an in
teresting example of how from a very small
beginning something of enormous propor-
tions may develop. We must, however,
bear in mind that had the Chinese dynasty,
the Ming, been able to hold the allegiance
of the hundreds of millions of true Chinese,
and had there not been contemptible trea-
son on the part of some of the imperial
generals, there would not have been the
same easy victory for the Manchus in gain-
ing possession of the whole Chinese Empire,
that there had been for their kinsmen, the
Mongols, in doing the same thing three cen-
turies before.
Manchuria itself is a most valuable part
of the Chinese Eepublic. This fact is dem-
onstrated by the eager desire displayed by
the Russians in gaining a foothold there,
and later by the efforts of the Japanese to
imitate their late rivals in war. In the
neighborhood of the capital of the Eastern
Three Provinces, Mukden, there are still to
be seen the tombs of some of the earliest
rulers of tlie ^Manchus. For the tourist bent
merely upon sight-seeing and for the student
166 OUR neighbors: the chine^^
of ethnology; as well as for the commercial
man, there are so many attractive things
about the portion of our Chinese neighbors
which inhabit Manchuria, that it is not sur-
prising so many people have gone there.
The pure Mongolians and Manchus
(there are not many of them, to be sure),
do not show the oblique eyes quite so
markedly as do the true Chinese, that is,
the people of the Eighteen Provinces. As
a rule these northern people are rather
larger and better proportioned than the
southern Chinese, and in many ways they
show the good effect of an active, outdoor
life. The costumes of all these Mongolians
and Manchurians are entirely different
from those of their Chinese fellow citizens,
conspicuously so in the winter, when a
rigorous climate compels them to wear
thick, wadded clothing and very often furs.
A Manchurian woman's way of dressing the
hair is unmistakable; it sets her off from
her Chinese sisters most conspicuously ; and
the same tiling may be said of the native
women of Mongolia.
.i;>
M
A.\( I/r Married Woman: Ihe
Headdress I ndicafes the Fact
CHAPTER XIII
THE TIBETANS AND THEIR COUNTEY
DR. SVEN REDIN'S interesting ac-
counts of his exploration into the cen-
tral parts of Asia and across the Himalayas,
give us the most complete account of Tibet
which is available. I do not wish to belittle
that explorer's work in any way, but in
fairness to others I may say that a number
of British subjects, who have been con-
nected with the Indian Civil Service, as well
as many army officers Avho have been sta-
tioned in those parts of the British Em-
pire, have told me that all of the important
information which Dr. Iledin has imparted
to the public had been, for some years
before he undertook his exploration, in the
archives of the Indian Government,
Inasmuch as it was taken from the re-
ports of officials or army officers who,
strictly speaking, perhaps ouglit not to have
been in Tibet at all, this information could
not be given to the public; and the alle-
giance of the individuals who had collected
the material forbade their writing for gen-
eral publication. Even as it is, we really
know verv liltle about the Tibetans and
167
168 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
probably shall not greatly increase our
knowledge until the Chinese Republic or
Government has advanced so far along the
paths that it is cutting out, parallel to what
the rest of the world has followed for a
thousand years or more, as to permit of
their opening freely every nook and corner
of this great domain.
Looking from the south up towards the
mighty Himalaya Mountains, they appear
in their greatest grandeur. Those who
have been able to gaze upon this range from
the north, say that they seem to lose much
of their impressiveness because they are
seen from the elevation of Tibet, " The Eoof
of the World."
In that country, whose average elevation
is so great that were it not for its proximity
to the Torrid Zone, it would be snow cov-
ered perennially, live some people who are
in many ways the strangest in the world,
and certainly the most uncommon and un-
familiar to all of us of the whole three or
four hundred millions who make up the en-
tire population of the Chinese Eepublic.
It is undoubtedly correct to put the
Tibetans into the Mongoloid family of hu-
man beings, although the distinguishing
characteristics of this class are rather less
noticeable in them than in any of tlie others
of the Chinese nation. This slight varia-
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTRY 169
tion is doubtless due to the infiltration of
an East Indian strain through the Him-
alayas and around the western end of that
range. Doubtless, too, some influence has
been made by the people of southeast Asia.
It is not recorded in reliable history that
any one body of human beings has been per-
mitted to develop itself in a constant phy-
sical environment, from the " beast stage,"
or even the lowest " man stage," up to its
present condition; and the Tibetans are
probably not the exception which is sup-
posed to prove the general rule. It is but
natural to find the Tibetans of rather small
stature, yet they are said to be generally
stout and stocky. In such a rigorous cli-
mate, it could hardly be expected that any
but the physically fitted children should
survive.
The most remarkable thing about the
Tibetans is their marriage custom. We
know well what monogamy is, the union in
marriage of one man and one woman, and
in our own experience, as an inheritance
from our European ancestors, what is
called the " father's right," that is the tra-
cing of ancestors back through the father's
line. AVe know, also, from biblical reading
and from knowledge of customs in certain
lands of polygamy; tliat is a plurality of
wives, sometimes all of equal rank although
170 OUE NEIGHBOES; THE CHINESE
more frequently one is the superior and the
rest are subordinate. We know, too, of
concubinage, sometimes without disgrace,
yet frequently otherwise.
But in Tibet all these conditions are re-
versed and the plurality in marriage is of
the men, the single one being the wife.
This extraordinary condition comes about
not altogether unnaturally, when we stop
and consider the circumstances in which it
has developed. In all the 463,200 square
miles of Tibet, there are but very few acres
of arable land. A farmer, as the word
means to us, is simply unknown. The cul-
tivated land is all in little patches which
we should hardly dignify by the name of
" field."
What fields there are lie along the foot
of the mountains in some spot where the
patch may be protected from the torrents
pouring down the mountainside, and from
the overflow of the stream which rushes
along at the bottom of the mountain valley.
A tremendous amount of labor is repre-
sented in one of those tiny patches; the lower
portion is defended against the stream by
a high wall built of stone; and it must be
tall enough to be above the highest flood
level. But some water for the crop of
wheat, or beans, or whatever it may be, is
necessary, and a considerable measure of
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTRY 171
engineering skill is displayed in conduct-
ing an irrigating stream into the field
without permitting the rush of water to
be a menace.
A glance at the map will show how ex-
ceedingly limited must be the area of cul-
tivable land in Tibet. Now suppose a man
has one such field, or possibly two or three
of these tiny patches, just enough land to
supply the wants of one family; and sup-
pose, further, that the man has three sons
— hj no means an unusual number in Tibet.
When the father dies, if the land is divided
amongst the three sons and each takes unto
himself a wife and rears a family, there will
be three households to starve.
It is impossible to divide the landed es-
tate and the Tibetans have solved a difficult
problem by adopting polyandry: that was
inevitable. " In highly developed societies,
polygamy (including concubinage) sug-
gests concentrated wealth and privilege.
Monogamy is democratic ; it suggests divided
property and privilege. Polyandry sug-
gests poverty and indivisibility of prop-
erty." The Tibetans are loath to move
away from the ancestral home; and in the
case of the three brothers which has been
assumed, either two must do that or they
must give up the pri\'ileges and responsibili-
ties of a monogamous marriage.
172 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
Doubtless experience in long past times
taught their ancestors that three families
in one home invariably lead to all manner
of complications and almost inevitably to
crimes, such as infanticide, as well as dis-
ease, and some things morally worse that
need not be discussed here. " Amongst the
Tibetans, the property, as an indivisible
whole, goes to the eldest son, who is pro-
vided with a wife ; but that wife becomes also
the legal spouse of the younger brothers.
The children of this woman are the objects
of a common affection, and when one of her
sons shall have grown to full manhood, and
shall have married a wife chosen by his
parents, he in turn shall come into a pri-
macy of power over the patrimony, his
elders reserving just enough to prolong
their habitual comfort — not enough to
prevent the establishment of a new genera-
tion. And thus, indefinitely, the cycle re-
peats itself; not less regularly — not less
blindly, obeying nature's demand for the
new individuals, than elsewhere in more
favored lands, by other forms." *
Eepulsive as is this polyandry to our
every idea of what married life and the
creation of a home should naturally be, yet
if one tries earnestly to put himself into
the i)osition of the Tibetans and knows the
* Crosby, Oscar Terry, Tibet and Turkestan.
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTRY 173
starved conditions of their life in its com-
mon aspects, it has to be admitted that they
have arrived at a solution of a problem
which is not altogether to be condemned.
Yet there is another phase of the Tibetan
married life which is inexcusably repulsive,
for it unites polyandry and polygamy in
the most shameless manner. If some great
good fortune should come to the family, so
that the joint income permits, the eldest
brother may take a second or even a third
wife. It may happen, too, that a second
w^ife is intiM^duced, even when the family
property has not been increased at all; this
will sometimes occur when the first wife has
no children. For the continuance of the
family line is deemed of almost as great im-
portance among the Tibetans as it is with
the Chinese, although the former are not
in any way inspired with the Confucian
ideas of the importance of ancestral wor-
ship. Tliese plural wives are still common
to all the brothers, and for some almost in-
explicable reason, the increase of popula-
tion is less in Tibet than in countries where
monogamy or polygamy is the rule.
Before leaving the subject with which
women are so intimately connected, it
seems well to state that the Tibetans of the
fair sex are by no means without title to
that adjective. They are reported as being
174 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of good proportions, gi'aceful build, and
comely features. Their costume is a simple
one, even if they display a fondness for
bright-hued materials. Where frequent
contact with the Chinese on one side or the
peoples of India on the other is noticeable,
there will, too, be noted a disposition to
imitate the dress of the strangers. This
remark applies to the men as well as to
the women, for in eastern Tibet there are
natives to be seen who have adopted the
Chinese queue; but whether this was a
matter of policy or merely a desire to be
ultra fashionable, I cannot say.
In certain parts of Tibet a great many
turquoises are found. Some are of good
size and great beauty; but as a rule they
are small and not costly; therefore the
women, even those who seem to be of such
poor classes as hardly to be able to aif ord
this extravagance, deck their hair with as
many of these precious stones as they can
get.
The dwellings of the Tibetans vary from
a hovel to a fairly large, rather imposing
edifice two stories in height; but all are
solidly built, as must be the case in a coun-
try where the winter's snows are deep and
lie long. It must be a curious sight to see
from nearly every dwelling, floating a flag
wliicli is not in any way a national emblem
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTEY 175
or ensign, but simply a popular way of keep-
ing the gods constantly informed of the in-
mates of the home desiring to pray to them ;
for the flag bears a prayer written so
closely as to cover the entire surface. The
petition, therefore, is measured by the size
of the flag.
In Tibet the curious " prayer-wheel " is
very common. This is a wheel on the folly
of which are pasted small bits of paper hav-
ing a prayer written on them : one whirl
of the wheel is sufficient to inform the gods
that the person has offered just that num-
ber of petitions.
The monasteries of Tibet are still most
imposing-looking structures. They are usu-
ally built on the side of a steep hill or
mountain, so that the lower side will tower
up to many stories, while the upper is only
two or three. The most celebrated of the
Lhasa monasteries has been reproduced in
facsimile by the Mongolians at Jehol
(Cheng-te) in the province of Chihli, north-
east of Peking.
This remark naturally draws attention to
the religion of the Tibetans, and it is of
somewliat peculiar interest because it is the
direct or indirect power of the religionists
which has tended as much as anything else
to keep Tibet a closed country against the
student and traveler. The Tibetan Bud-
176 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
dhist priests maintain stoutly that in their
country has been preserved the only pure
Buddhism that now exists. They declare
that what is taught in Ceylon even is so
far from the teachings of the Buddha him-
self as to be unrecognizable.
This claim is utterly false, for the doc-
trines, already much corrupted, which were
carried into Tibet a thousand years after
Gautama's death, have been still further
corrupted. Competent students of com-
parative religion find that in Tibet the
original impersonal generalization of the
Buddha have been almost smothered by a
mass of alien beliefs in no way connected
with ideal Buddhism. Moral qualities
have grown to be gods who are given their
place in the overcrowded pantheon; and so
called " Emanations " from the original
founder or his special disciples, have been
individualized, and then those persons
canonized.
The Romish doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception has been applied to make the
mother of Prince Siddartha equal, in the
matter of her conception, with that which
the strictest Romanists claim for the Virgin
Mary; and Queen Maya is declared by
some of the Tibetans to have been herself
of Virgin birth.
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTRY 177
It is certain that wliat little is left of
Buddhism in India is radically different
from what the earliest literature teaches;
while Buddhism in China has widely di-
verged from the Master's teachings; and
that of Japan is scarcely recognizable as
real Buddhism. The Buddhists of Tibet
are now generally called Lamaists, the
strictest being loyal adherents of the Dalai
Lama officially, for personally that individ-
ual has often conducted himself in such a
way as to forfeit the respect of his coun-
trymen.
The other religious body of real impor-
tance in Tibet is one that is called Pon-bo.
This last mentioned combines in a strange
way the superstitions of an old Nature-
worship with some of the lower, grosser ele-
ments of Lamaism. Mr. Crosby* not at all
ineptly says that the relation of the two
bodies is similar to that which might have
been seen in Europe as late as the sixth
century after Christ, when there still
existed communities professing the ancient
paganism, while enthroned Christianity had
not been able to free itself from a heritage
of magic, witchcraft, and devil cult, and had
shifted the worsliip of the Finite from demi-
gods to saints. But in Europe at that time,
* Op. cit.
178 OUR NEIGHBOKS: THE CHINESE
as in Tibet now, there were seen a very
few who drank such pure water as the
higher creed may offer to the most en-
lightened.
The eastern part of Tibet is still closed
to the ordinary traveler, so that access to
the country, east of about the longitude of
Lhasa, from the north, east, or south, is
practically impossible. It is not difficult
for almost any one who chooses to do so to
get into the extreme western part of the
country. In each village of that section
there is an inn, or some proper place for
strangers to lodge, and it is quite easy to
procure an abundant supply of food. Not
always meats, but coarse bread, milk,
chickens, and eggs are plentiful, and there
is said to be no displeasing attempt to
practise extortion.
The people are inquisitive and certainly
would like to see how the stranger, espe-
cially if he is a European, conducts himself ;
but their curiosity rarely becomes offensive.
Although professedly Buddhists or Mahom-
etans, and one of course expects such peo-
ple to be abstemious, the natives make a
pleasing, thirst-quenching drink which is
something like both wine and beer. All
things considered, when the government of
the Chinese Republic has become so firmly
THE TIBETANS AND COUNTRY 179
established as to rule and govern in all
parts of its domain, there will be an oppor-
tunity for the curious traveler to derive
much satisfaction from a visit to this group
of our Chinese neighbors.
CHAPTER XIV
TRE MAHOMETANS
IT will be remembered that Mahometanism
is considered as beginning in the year
622 of the Christian era. Furthermore it is
generally said that the teachers of this re-
ligion have never been remarkably conspic-
uous for their efforts to secure converts by
sending missionaries into regions of the
earth far away from the center of their own
faith, Mecca. Yet in the Chinese Republic
there are many Mahometans. This is not
at all surprising when we think of the ex-
treme western section of the republic, for
in those districts the people came into direct
association with the advancing Moslems,
and indeed the colonies of those who profess
that faith are the most important element
in the populations of Dzungaria, Hi, and
Chinese Turkestan.
In such a part of the Chinese Republic
as Eastern Mongolia, thousands of miles
from the frontier along which the Mahome-
tans have been living in numbers for nearly
fourteen hundred years, there are fol-
lowers of the Prophet. At the cities of T'a
Tzu Kou and Hata, as well as throughout
180
THE MAHOMETANS 181
the whole adjacent country, there is a con-
siderable Moslem population, and in the
former city the mosque is a handsome
building. At least its gateway is an impos-
ing structure, even if it does not bear
distinguishing marks to denote the faith of
those who worship therein. For a Moslem
temple that gateway is somewhat too
highly ornamented ; although the interior is
said to be very quiet and plain.
One Christian missionary who made a
trip in eastern Mongolia a few years ago,
says that the simplicity and apparent rever-
ence associated w4th Mahometan mosques,
is especially welcomed in a land like China,
where most things, in any way connected
with religion, are loud and garish, and even
the temples at times are the opposite of
restful.*
There is one conspicuous trait which
marks pleasantly the Mahometan of far
eastern China from their fellows in the re-
mote west. It is that the priests in charge
of the mosques show themselves quite
friendly towards the visitor from Europe,
They claim a certain relationship on the
ground of religion, because their faith, like
our own, came into China from the west.
This claim of fellowship extends to more
prosaic or ])ractical matters than religion,
* Headlcy, Jolin, Tramps in Dark Mongolia.
182 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
for wherever there is a choice at a remote
city or town of eastern Mongolia, between
an inn kept by a Buddhist Chinese, or
one whose landlord is a Mahometan, the
stranger will do well to accept hospitality
from the latter, for as a rule the accommoda-
tions are cleaner, the fare better, and more
to his taste, and the welcome more cordial.
Just here an amusing story of how the
Mahometans look at their political affilia-
tions may be told : I borrow the substance
of it from the Rev. Mr. Headley.*
A Chinese whose name was Wang Fu
Ma, who had gone into eastern Mongolia
from the province of Shantung, and quite
evidently he was a man of the adventurer
class, had been employed by the Russians
during the late war with Japan, 1904-5.
His services had been so highly appreciated
that he was reputed to have received from
the Russian government a commission as
major in their regular army.
It was Wang's duty to help procure sup-
plies for the Russian commissariat, and
therefore he made frequent visits to K'u Lu
Kou for the purpose of buying animals and
produce. On one of his trips he took into
partnership a Mahometan townsman who
likewise bore the family name of Wang.
They bought three thousand head of cattle
* Op. cit.
THE MAHOMETANS 183
and made them ready for the march to Muk-
den. The Mahometan, having concluded a
profitable deal as middleman for the Rus-
sians, then thought to make another hon-
est (?) penny out of their enemies, and
surreptitiously sent a message to a notori-
ous brigand chief, Chin Shou Shon, who was
in the pay of the Japanese. The result of
course was an attack upon the Russian con-
voy; the death of Major Wang Fu Ma and
the decapitation of the civilian Wang, came
as incidents.
Just when Islamism made its way as
a preached religion into China is not easy
to determine. Not only would the caravan
trade along routes leading westward across
the continent, tend to bring the Chinese and
Mahometans into intercourse, with the in-
evitable result that the Moslem priests
would try to spread a knowledge of their
faith, but the sea-trade between the ports
of southern China and those of the Arabian
Gulf or even still farther west, would like-
wise promote such intermingling.
It is certain that in early times the Hwui-
hwui Kiao, as the Chinese called the Mos-
lems, the followers of the Propliet, were
attracted to China. In the time of the
T'ang Dynasty (618 to 907 A. D.) there
were Mahometan priests at Canton and
Hangchau. They built mosques, they
184 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
opened schools and printed some books, and
they encouraged the Chinese to make pil-
grimages to Mecca. This last mentioned
attempt at proselytizing appealed mightily
to the Chinese, who, especially along the
coast, have always been passionately fond
of travel and of going over seas whenever
they could make excuse for doing so.
There is one thing about Islamism which
has seemed to be a sufficient reason for its
not meeting with much favor amongst the
Chinese, and that is the rigid rule which
forbade translation of the Koran. This
would tend, of course, to keep the sacred
book out of the hands of the literati and
educated classes, who were not content to
receive instruction solely from the preach-
ing of the Moslem missionaries, and their
expounding by word of mouth, the tenets of
their religion. Still, as has been said, the
number of Mahometans in the Chinese Ee-
public is so great that they are given the
honor of having one stripe in the new flag
stand for them.
There are even now mosques in many
of the cities of China proper, as well as
in Mongolia and Manchuria. Before the
downfall of the Manchus there was a tablet
in each mosque which bore an ascription
of reverence to the Emperor, while the name
of the Prophet was placed behind that of
THE MAHOMETANS 185
his imperial majesty; what will be done
now that the president of the Republic is
to be considered as having no claim to di-
vine right, and no family connection with
the gods in Heaven, remains to be seen;
probably the Prophet's name will be given
sole prominence.
There are of course no idols or any
images in the mosques; and none of the
tablets that are so sacred to Buddhists,
Taoists, and Confucianists ; but there are
plenty of scrolls suspended along the walls,
and these bear, in Arabic, references to the
doctrines. These scrolls are unintelligible
to even the educated among the worship-
ers, for Arabic is a language which the
Chinese learn only with the greatest dififl-
culty. Although affirming that they wor-
ship the true God by the name of Chu, or
Lord, yet it is more than doubtful if the
Mahometans ever did anything appreciable
to elevate the Chinese in any way, or that
the religion has ever benefited the country.
But the greatest interest which the Ma-
hometans in China possess for us is their
rebellions. The word " rebellion " is a com-
mon one in Chinese history, and it brings
to the mind many scenes of bloodshed and
destruction, on scales that fill us with hor-
ror.
The establishing of Chinese rule in those
186 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
parts of the former empire, which must be
distinguished by the names Dzungaria, Hi,
Kobdo, Eastern Turkestan, etc., was accom-
plished so long ago that anything more
than this brief allusion is unnecessary, al-
though it has to be said that it was not
effected in a quiet way without the shed-
ding of much blood.
After the Chinese had fixed themselves
firmly as rulers, peace — at least of a kind
— ensued for centuries. Indeed, it was not
until after the middle of the nineteenth
century that some of the Mahometan sub-
jects of the Chinese Emperor broke out into
open revolt, which threatened for a time
the very foundations of the empire. It is
not intended to suggest that always were
those subjects entirely satisfied with the
rule of the mandarins; for often the over-
bearing oppression of these administrative
ofiicials was resented; yet I imagine that
the officials knew only too well their own
guilt, and succeeded in placating their re-
bellious subjects without calling upon the
Central Government for assistance, or let-
ting the people carry their complaints to
the throne.
But while tlie Central Government was
worried almost to distraction by the fa-
mous Tapping Rel)ellion, which began in
1850 and was finally suppressed in 1863,
THE MAHOMETANS 187
and then only tliroiio^h the effort of " Chi-
nese " Gordon, the Britisli oflQcer who was
loaned to the Chinese Government for the
express purpose, rebellions of the Mahome-
tan subjects broke out almost simultaneous-
ly in the southwest province of Yunnan
and in the two provinces of Shensi and
Kansuh, in the far northwest.
With regard to the first mentioned, it
was the culmination of an unsuccessful ef-
fort by the Mahometan population to in-
duce the Central Government to punish the
unscrupulous mandarins who committed
the gravest crimes, and praying the em-
peror to send a just and honest man to rule
over them. Perhaps the Court intention-
ally paid no attention to these appeals,
although probably the greater rebellion ob-
scured the less; at any rate nothing was
done to satisfy the Mahometans and the
resulting rebellion in Yunnan, as well as
that in the northwest, cost hundreds of
thousands of lives and large sums of mimey.
In 1873 a similar uprising of the Mahom-
etans in the northwest was finally sup-
pressed. We know that the expense to the
Central Government which this entailed
was very great and that the loss of life was
enormous, because during active hostilities
neither side gave quarter; but we shall
never know tlie exact extent of the rebellion.
188 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
nor its precise cost in men and money.
The Mahometan rebellion in East Tur-
kestan, about 1870, was serious in itself,
but it was most important to the Chinese
because of the share which Eussia had in
its suppression, and of the complications
that followed.
Of Turkestan as a whole, we get our first
glimpse somewhere about 200 B. C. The
country was evidently a fertile one, for it
aroused the envy of some Yue-che, of the
Mongolian or Tartar race, who poured
in from the northeast. Later, rather by
peaceful crowding than by armed conquest,
these intruders were replaced by Moslems,
so that now the major part of all the ex-
treme west of the Chinese Republic is popu-
lated by followers of the Prophet, although
doubtless there may be many of those Tar-
tars who have accepted Islamism.
The influence of climate in that region
has been tremendous, the drying up of what
must have been at one time fairly fertile
regions is indicated clearly by the discover-
ies of archaeologists, so that the combina-
tion of cruel Nature and yet more cruel
Man, has converted most of the western
possessions into what is little better than a
desert. The people themselves were like-
wise affected both in their physical develop-
ment and their habits of life, as well as in
THE MAHOMETANS 189
the nature of their disposition. At times
they are hospitable and kind, at other times
they are hostile and treacherous, so that
traveling in that region is always a pre-
carious matter.
Dzungaria, where are many of the
Mahometans of China, was formerly a
Mongolian kingdom of considerable im-
portance. It attained its extreme height,
politically and socially, in the latter part
of the seventeenth century under the leader-
ship of Bushtu Khan, known also as Kal-
dan. The former kingdom was long ago
divided into Eastern Turkestan, belonging
to China, and Russian Turkestan. Its
name came from the Dsongars or Songars,
who were so-called because they formed the
left wing of the Mongolian army; dson
meaning " left " and gar meaning " hand,"
Properly speaking, the portion belonging
to China should be called T'ien Shan-pei-lu,
that being the official name of the province,
which probably conveys the idea of " The
Mountains that reach up to Heaven."
The population of Eastern Turkestan is
exceedingly mixed, as would naturally be
expected. There are some Aryans, many
people belonging to the Ural-Altaic stock,
which connotes the people of the high cen-
tral Asian region, Dzungars, and others.
The agriculturalists, both farmers and or-
190 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
chardists, are nearly all of Turkish stock,
yet they too are much mixed with Aryan
blood. In the towns the people are prac-
tically, all of Turkish blood, and the lan-
guage universally spoken is Jogatai Turk-
ish, a patois which is astonishingly popular
throughout the whole region west and south
of the great desert of Gobi.
Because so much of Eastern Turkestan
is desert, agriculture is of very small im-
portance, being confined to the oases at the
foot of the mountains. However, if the
crops are small in their totals, excellent
grains of various kinds are grown, besides
cotton, tobacco, opium, etc. Some of the
oases are famous for their orchards which
provide fruits of many kinds, all having a
most remarkable reputation for size and
delicacy of flavor.
The Chinese officials, under the former
administration, were notoriously indifferent
towards the material development of the
country they were sent to govern, and al-
though they must have known that wonders
could be accomplished in the oases and
their surrounding country if irrigation were
provided, they seemed to have given next to
no attention to this important matter.
Nevertheless the people themselves have
done much in this way and with admirable
results. It is to be hoped, and it is believed.
THE MAHOMETANS 191
that the new government of the Chinese Re-
public will give the needed assistance in
trying to convert at least a portion of this
desert region into arable land, and make
the Mahometan population a factor of
some importance in the great schemes of
industrial and commercial development
which the enthusiastic progressives of China
have promised themselves.
The people of some of those oases already
bear an excellent reputation for admirable
workmanship in certain specialties. Kho-
tan furnishes silks, white carpets, felt
goods, and many kindred articles which are
greatly sought after, not only by the peo-
ple of the surrounding countries, but also
some of them find their way abroad. The
leather goods, especially saddlery of Kucha
and Kara-shahr have a well-deserved repu-
tation for excellence and beauty ; and there
are a number of other towns which are
more or less specialized as to their crea-
tions. ITnder wise administration, and
with relief from the official rapacity of the
past, there is no reason why all of the in-
dustries sliould not be raised from practi-
calh^ insignificance to volumes of impor-
tance.
Very attractive suggestions as to possi-
bilities in industrial art, are to be found in
the following extract from the last edition
192 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, based upon
Dr. Sven Hedin's reports : " In the desert
not far from the town of Khotan, in a lo-
cality known as Borasan, objects in terra-
cotta, bronze images of Buddha, engraved
gems, coins and Mss. [were found] ; the
objects which display artistic skill, give in-
dications of having been wrought by crafts-
men who labored to reproduce Grseco-
Indian ideals in the service of the cult of
Buddha, and consequently date presumably
from the third century B. C, when the suc-
cessors of Alexander the Great were found-
ing their kingdoms in Persia," etc.
But it is not necessary to infer that the
skill of those craftsmen has absolutely dis-
appeared in their remote descendants, more
than tw^o thousand years later. Another
writer, whose antiquarian researches have
given assurance of a degree of culture in
this apparently hopeless region, is Dr. M.
A. Stein. He found traces of a Chinese
wall, with watch-towers and guard-stations,
that must have been of considerable length.
There were evidences of settlement back to
the second century of our era, and Dr.
Stein found a large number of documents
and examples of early Chinese art. The
interesting question then asserts itself:
Was the influx of Mahometans the cause
of the disappearance of that culture; or
THE MAHOMETANS 193
was it purely a result of physical degrada-
tion both of soil and inhabitants? If the
former, there would seem to be an admir-
able opportunity for the Chinese Republic
to re-educate the Mahometans of these
Western provinces so that conditions of two
thousand years ago may be revived to the
great advantage of the New Republic.
CHAPTER XV
HOW THE CHINESE CAME TO BE KNOWN
TO THE BEST OF THE WOBLD
IT has already been indicated that the
peoples of southeast Europe, long be-
fore the commencement of the Christian
era, knew something of a land in the re-
moter parts of Asia which they were accus-
tomed to call Seres. Whether it was
through myth or something based upon geo-
graphical knowledge that this name came
to have rather a wide horizon, or because of
the skill which the people of that distant
country early displayed in rearing silk-
worms and in manufacturing silk clothes,
hardly calls for careful consideration here.
There is abundant evidence that at the
very beginning of the Christian era, and
probably before that time, the Greek and
Roman merchants need not have gone all
the way to China proper to obtain these
coveted materials, for it has been shown in
the last chapter that almost certainly these
could have been had in Turkestan, before
entering the dreary deserts which lay be-
tween that section of the former Chinese
Empire and the fertile valleys of the east-
194
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 195
ern part thereof where the mulberry tree
grew in great numbers and silk goods were
common.
An amusing example of the proneness of
too many writers for jumping to a conclu-
sion, because they are deceived by some
trifling linguistic resemblance or state-
ment which seems to them to be suggestive,
is found in the commentaries upon the writ-
ings of one of the Greek-Latin historians,
Ammianus-Marcellinus (320 to 390 A. D.),
who gives a description of the land of Seres
and of its people. He seems to allude to
the famous Great Wall which was com-
menced by Emperor T'sin Chih in 214 B. C.
and finished in 204 B.C.
Of course it was not absolutely impos-
sible for this stupendous undertaking to
have been known in Europe at the time
when this historian wrote, although it is
safe to say it was quite improbable that
anybody could have carried the news across
the continent of Asia to the Europeans;
and equally improbable that any traveler
from Europe should have wandered so far
into the remote east. Yet Christian Las-
sen, a German Orientalist, bom 1800, died
187G, and Joseph Toussaint Reinaub, a
French Orientalist, born 1795, died 1867,
botli seemed to have been curiously deceived
by Ammianus' allusion, and to have taken
196 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
it for granted that he did refer to the great
barrier intended to keep the Tartars out
of the Middle Kingdom.
As a simple matter of fact, Ammianus
was manifestly giving a little touch of color
to the dry statement of Ptolemy, and had in
his mind nothing more than the mountains
which were said to separate Seres from the
western world. Ptolemy plainly indicates
that the country of Serice extends south
w^estward to the region of the Pamirs, and
no doubt it did reach quite that far in the
time of the famous Egyptian astronomer,
mathematician, and geographer, who Avrote
during the interval from 125 to 135 A. D.
In the nineteenth century the Chinese
Government certainly did assert and main-
tain its rights to territory beyond the
Pamirs.
" If we fuse into one, the ancient notices
of the Seres and their country, overlooking
anomalous statements and manifest fables,
the result will be somewhat as follows:
' The region of the Seres is a vast and jjopu-
lous country, touching on the east the ocean
and the limits of the habitable world, and
extending west to Imaus and the confines
of Bactria. The people are civilized, mild,
just, and frugal, eschewing collisions with
their neighbors, and even shy of close inter-
course, but not adverse to dispose of their
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 197
own products, of which raw silk is the
staple, but which included also silk-stuffs,
fine furs, and iron of remarkable quality.'
This is manifestly a definition of the Chi-
nese." *
But then on the other hand, it is clearly
proved that the Chinese had a very correct
knowledge of that part of Europe which
was considered then to be civilized, at the
commencement of the Christian era. In
some of the Chinese Classics there is men-
tion of the Empire of Rome by the name of
Ta-tsing, " Great Nation,'' and a surpris-
ingly high tribute is paid to the intelligence,
probity, and courtesy of the Romans; while
their attainments in arts and industry are
spoken of in such a way as almost to lead
us to suspect the Chinese were envious of
the achievement of those people in the re-
mote west.
It must be remembered that in those times
the Chinese had not assumed that air of
superiority which made them so objection-
able fifteen hundred years later. They
would not have thought at that time of
speaking of strangers, who displayed the
skill and material progress of the Greeks
and Romans, as " Outer Barbarians " or
" Foreign Devils." Yet even this slight
knowledge of each other, that is Chinese
* Sir Henry Yule, in Enc. Brit.
198 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
and Europeans, does not really satisfy the
meaning of " know " as the word is used
in the title to this chapter.
Nor can we get much satisfaction from the
myths and legends that in the earliest years
of the first century after Christ, there were
missionaries of the new faith who made
their way into the Land of Sinim. I have
found much that is interesting and indeed
quite probable in the narrative of two Arab
merchants who either made their way over-
land into some part of the Chinese Empire
of the ninth century, or came into commer-
cial relations with Chinese caravans;
although possibly they may have gone by
sea to the coast of China. But their nar-
rative is not satisfactory.
The name Cathay comes nearest to af-
fording a satisfactory idea of what the Chi-
nese were a long time ago. It is derived
from the Kitan Tartars of the Liaotung
peninsula and its hinterland. Those peo-
ple assisted in the overthrow of the subor-
dinate T'ang or " After T'ang " dynasty.
They put a monarch on the throne of China
and then compelled him to give them a heavy
subsidy. They exacted tlie cession of six-
teen cities in the now metropolitan province
of Chihli, and an annual tribute of three
hundred thousand pieces of silk. This dis-
graceful dynasty, if such it may be called for
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 199
many of the Chinese historians deliberately
ignore it, lasted from 936 to 947 A. D., and
it is reckoned, by the few recorders who do
not cut it out of the list altogether, as the
meanest and most contemptible House that
ever presumed to rule the peoples of the
Middle Kingdom. But for all their base-
ness, the Kitans gave the world a word
which, in its original form of Kitai, is still
used in Russia to designate China, and is
similarly employed by most of the natives
of Central Asia.
If Cathay was at all known to medieval
Europe, it may be only as an almost myth-
ical country, the name long ago ceased to
be used as a geographical expression, but
it is even now sometimes employed in poetic
or semi-poetic description. It will proba-
bly always be associated in our minds with
the conquests of the great Genghis Khan
and his successors, who for a time appar-
ently threatened to wipe out Christianity
and absorb all Christians into the Mongol or
Tartar Empire.
Yet, for how strange to our feeble human
intelligence seems sometimes the way of
Providence, " 'Tis worthy of grateful re-
membrance of all Christian people that
just at the time when God sent forth into
the western parts of the world the Tartars
to slay and be slain, He also sent into the
200 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
east His faithful and beloved servants,
Dominic and Francis, to enlighten, instruct,
and build up the Faith." This is the state-
ment of a later missionary friar, Kicold of
Monte Croce.
We owe much to the two mendicant or-
ders, Dominican and Franciscan; all that
we know of Asia during the middle ages of
Europe. Our debt is especially great to
the latter order for information about
Cathay and the Cathayans. Yet it was not
through them that we really heard for the
first time something from Cathay itself.
We may properly say that it was through
the members of the Polo family of Venice
that the Chinese came to be known to the
rest of the world. This statement does
not mean that the Polos were the only Eu-
ropeans to visit China (or Cathay, if that
word is preferred), nor does it absolutely
preclude the possibility that some Chinese
visited Europe during the Middle Ages or
even before that time. There is evidence to
the contrary; certainly as to the visits of
Europeans to remotest Asia as the phrase
then connoted, and probably so as to Chi-
nese going westward.
There were Chinese engineers employed
along the banks of the Tigres River because
of their skill in constructing and maintain-
ing irrigation works; and it is reasonably
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 201
certain that whosoever wished to do so,
might in those times have consulted Chinese
astrologers and doctors in most of the cities
of southwestern Asia. These wise men are
reputed to have done a thriving trade in
their specialties. If the Cathayans were
so far from home as these statements indi-
cate, it is impossible not to believe they
went farther, and crossed the Bosphorus
into Europe: how far they may have gone
after that is too speculative to justify even
a moment's pause.
Of the Polos it is our good fortune to
have a narrative from the lips of Marco, the
son of one and the nephew of the otlier of
two brothers who completed the trio which,
in the thirteenth century set out from Eu-
rope and journeying on and on, through
summer and winter, came at length to the
residence of the Great Khan, which was
then at a certain rich and great city, called
Kemenfu.
This has been identified as Kaiping-fu,
" The City of Peace," a place that was
founded in 1256, four years before Kublai
Khan's accession to the throne of the great
Empire which had been consolidated by
himself and his immediate ancestors.
That city is some distance north of the
Great Wall, and it was Kublai's favorite
summer residence, just as it has been pop-
202 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
ular with the Peking officials and gentry
ever since. In 1264 it was called Shang-
tu, " Upper Court " for the very reason that
it was such a favorite resort with the im-
perial family, its courtiers, and the aris-
tocracy of the capital. The Polos' visit
then was the beginning of a sort of acquaint-
ance between Cathay and Europe and for
a couple of centuries the people of China,
both mandarins and commoners, were cer-
tainly not unfriendly to strangers. We
have only to read carefully the narrative of
Marco Polo's travels to be convinced tliat
there was in his time no disposition to close
up China behind a great wall which was,
figuratively, to be raised on all three of the
land sides, while the gates of the seaports
were to be closed tightly against European
invaders.
When the Portuguese had found their way
round the southern extremity of Africa and
up into the East Indies, that land of spices
which had long been their main objective,
and had thereafter gone forward till they
reached the coast of China, from which
country they were to carry the silks, fabrics
and many precious things which all Eu-
rope — alike men and women who could af-
ford to wear them or use them in any way
— were so anxious to procure.
It was then reasonably and correctly as-
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 203
sumed that China was ready to give wel-
come to the Europeans with wide-open
arms. So she would have been had those
Europeans behaved themselves decently;
and had the reputation of those Portuguese
buccaneers not gone before them. It is an in-
sult to the perspicacity of those w^ho were,
at that time certainly if they are not now,
among the brightest and most intelligent
people of the world, to suppose they knew
nothing of what the Portuguese had done
along the African coasts.
But even if the Chinese were so densely
ignorant as to know nothing of what the
rest of the world was doing, and of the
methods followed by European nations in
extending their domains, it would have been
sufficient for them to note just what the
Europeans did on arriving at Chinese ports
to be convinced that in the expressed desire
for legitimate trade and friendly relations,
the newcomers were far from being ingen-
uous.
I shall not now repeat a story, which has
been told elsewhere, of the seizure of Macao
by the Portuguese under a pretext which
would have been repulsed by force of arms in
any country of Europe, or in any of the
over-seas possessions of such a nation. I
must not, moreover, go into the details of
the opium trade for that, too, has been
204 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
treated of elsewhere.* But I am convinced
that all good Americans will agree that the
beginnings of the revived trade between
Chinese and Europeans was not of a nature
to inspire the Chinese officials with a high
idea of the integrity and friendliness of
their European neighbors, and in this con-
viction I think all unprejudiced Europeans
will concur.
It is almost impossible to discuss fully the
way in which the Chinese became known
once more to the rest of the world in the
sixteenth century, without incurring the
risk of hurting somebody's feelings. I hold
no brief for the Chinese government or peo-
ple, and cannot therefore espouse their
cause too fully, else would there be a state-
ment of force too often employed by the
strong against the weak. On the other
hand, I do not feel called upon to extenuate
actual crimes perpetrated in the name of
progress, friendly relations, and legitimate
trade.
It is well, perhaps, to repeat the sub-
stance of what I have stated elsewhere,
that the Manchu government of China, and
practically all the mandarins of that coun-
try, were heartily opposed to their subjects
engaging in foreign commerce. All the
Manchus knew perfectly well that in their
* See The Coming China.
HOW THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN 205
hearts all Chinese were bitterly opposed to
them: they feared that trade with Europe-
ans would result in alienating their Chi-
nese subjects, and for that reason the Man-
chus did everything they could to block
trade.
The few instances on record of real Chi-
nese mandarins lending their influence to
promote such commercial intercourse, con-
firmed the suspicion of the alien rulers of
China that friendship between the true Chi-
nese and Europeans meant successful
hostilities between Chinese and Manchus.
It is to be regretted that some of the re-
corded instances of Chinese mandarins try-
ing to encourage trade between their
nationals and Europeans, showed those of-
ficials to be only too willing to make un-
holy profit for themselves out of that
nefarious and debasing opium trade.
The Manchus would have been blind or
stupid not to have learnt the lesson which
the Taeping Rebellion afforded, that was
avowedly an uprising to dethrone the
T'sung (Manchu) dynasty and drive out all
Manchu officials. It was not the only evi-
dence given the usurpers that the Chinese
hated them, but it Avas the most startling
one of all. The attitude which the leaders
took at first of professing to be active
Christians, strengthened the conviction of
206 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
the Manchus that intercourse between their
Chinese subjects and foreigners was bound
to result in everything that was disastrous
to themselves, and it cannot be denied that
recent events have proved the Manchus to
have been entirely correct in that convic-
tion. The close of the seventeenth century
found the whole of Europe well acquainted
with the Chinese, and by the end of the eight-
eenth century that acquaintance of the
latter included the then youngest republic
in the world, the United States of America.
CHAPTER XVI
A CHINESE BOY'S LIFE
LET us first give a few minute's con-
sideration to what the life of a little
boy probably was in the imperial palace,
let us say until the enforced abdication of
the child emperor. He was likely to have a
pleasanter life in retirement from active
duty as emperor of a collection of peoples
who never were homogenous, and who bade
fair to separate violently even before the
downfall of the Manchus. His life under
such conditions would certainly have proved
to be uncomfortable to himself.
Although the Great Empress Dowager,
less than ten years ago, proved in her own
case the fallacy of the Confucian theory
that women are almost less than nothing in
the scale of things divine or earthly, it is
nevertheless true that there had to be on the
throne of China an emperor to perform the
rites of ancestor worship; because this
could be done only by a male, and to offi-
ciate at various religious ceremonies during
the year when the sovereign communicated
with his deceased relatives and ancestors,
the gods in High Heaven. Hence it was
207
208 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
considered as of rather more importance
that the real empress should hear a son to
her liege lord than it was, perhaps, in the
case of other families. If Her Majesty
was not so favored by the gods, it was then
incumbent upon the emperor to provide for
the succession by taking unto himself con-
cubines — it was not really possible that
there should be two or more empresses.
It was because of this necessity for secur-
ing male issue in the imperial line that the
famous Empress Dowager managed to get
the reins of government into her hands.
During the reign of the Manchus, it was
required that all Manchu families above a
certain rank should furnish to the nearest
magistrate a full description of their mar-
riageable daughters. Then once a year
those lists, with possibly comments upon the
physical attractions of the girls, were sent
to Peking; and if the emperor desired to do
so he could require any of the maidens, or
as many as he chose, to become inmates of
the palace and imperial concubines.
It was in this way that Her Majesty, the
late Empress Dowager, first got into the
Court. She was physically attractive and
of much, more than average intelligence, and
in the atmosphere she breathed it was im-
possible for her not to become line intri-
gmite; so that eventually she induced the
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 209
former emperor to raise her to the position
of his consort, after the death of her prede-
cessor. She was never recognized officially
as the sovereign, even if there was prece-
dent for it in Chinese annals; but that she
was the ruler of the country just the same
is indisputable.
One thing she never forgave the gods, and
that was for not giving her a legitimate son
to ascend the throne when her husband was
called upon to relinquish the sceptre. She
hated to see her nephew, Emperor Kwang
Hsti, nominally acquire the power of the
monarch and we all know she took good
care that his exercise of that power was a
farce, so far as concerned anything she did
not originate or approve.
When a little prince was born in the im-
perial apartments, there were certain super-
stitious ceremonies to be observed which
would be considered by us as revolting, and
it is therefore utterly needless to describe
them here. It was of the most vital im-
portance that the court astrologers should
be informed of the very minute of the boy's
birth in order to be able to cast his horo-
scope, and at any future time tell him the
will of the gods as to any proposed act.
The next important measure was to secure
for the baby a wet nurse, because another
strange superstition forbade the empress or
210 OUR neighbors; the Chinese
imperial concubine nursing her own male
offspring. The Chinese rulers were not
altogether singular in this custom, for its
parallel may be noticed in other parts of the
world. Probably some of the empresses,
queens, or hereditary princesses of ruling
houses in Europe, are not permitted, or
they are unwilling, to nurture their own
little sons; and yet they would indignantly
repudiate the idea that doing so was in the
remotest way influenced by superstition.
The w^et nurse selected for the imperial
prince was always, if possible, a Manchu
woman; but there was no fixed rule about
it and superstition did not operate to pre-
vent a suitable Chinese woman receiving
the appointment ; I may say this was a most
comfortable and lucrative post while the
active duty continued, for everything was
done to make the nurse happy, cheerful, and
as stout and hearty as an abundance of the
best food could secure these desiderata, in
order that the little prince might be well
nurtured and his nutriment contribute to
make him of a cheerful disposition. There
are many cases recorded in Chinese history
of an emperor displaying greater real love
for his foster mother than for his true
mother.
Instead of Christian baptism, or the Jew-
ish rite of circumcision, there came — when
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 211
the boy was a month old — the important
ceremony of shaving the baby's head, usu-
ally by a priest, and the giving of the " Baby
Name." I shall not attempt to enumerate
the many other ceremonies which mark the
babyhood of a little Manchu Prince, for
there were too many of them.
If the child was constantly weak, there
were innumerable rites to induce the gods
to give him health and strength. This weak-
ness was all too often conspicuous in the
imperial children ; and it could hardly have
been otherwise when we remember the tend-
ency on the part of so many emperors to
give way to license which frequently
amounted to absolute debauchery, thus
weakening the father both physically and
mentally.
When the boy was fully six, or perhaps
seven, years of age, came the next important
ceremony of another shaving of the head.
This time, however, the patch of hair on the
very crown was allowed to remain in order
that the queue might grow and thereafter,
as soon as possible, the lock was braided and
lengthened by adding to the hair some
strands of silk cord. The long Chinese
queue with which most of us are familiar,
was never more than two-thirds real hair,
gi'owing from the wearer's head.
At this second ceremonial shaving,
212 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
another name was given to the little prince.
This one he might continue to bear until he
attained manhood or even until his acces-
sion to the throne, if he was chosen to that
honor; for the right of primogeniture, as
to this imperial succession, was never abso-
lute in the Manchu dynasty, or any other,
so far as I know; the emperor frequently
exercised the right of choice and in doing
so, selected a junior son.
Then came the duty of assigning teachers
for the young prince's education. The
most important member of the corps was
the man who was to instruct the prince in
the rites and ceremonies of the Court ; how
to perform the solemn ritual connected with
the New Year, the ceremonial plowing and
planting of grain in the spring and the
reaping at harvest time.
There were a thousand of these ceremon-
ies connected with the worship of imperial
ancestors, the expressions of gratitude to the
gods for benefits conferred by them upon
the prince himself, the imperial family, or
the whole nation ; and there were, moreover,
equally solemn ceremonies to appease the
wrath of the gods, when misfortune came to
Court or people, for the responsibility of the
emperor in these matters was something
very real in the eyes of the monarch, as well
as in the opinion of his subjects.
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 213
But I imagine every true American
mother would have felt pity for the little
princeling who was always robed in heavy
garments that must have been a sore burden
for the little limbs. If naked babies are a
common enough sight in the streets of
China, the luxury of kicking up his bare
heels and tumbling about in the freedom of
nudity, was scrupulously denied the little
imperial prince.
As to pleasure in the precise sense that
we use the word, there was precious little
of it allowed the young prince, until he had
grown to be a big boy. Of toys and all sucli
accessories to childish amusement, we may
be sure that they were provided in plenty,
but there was not much freedom granted in
using them lest some accident might result.
It is related of the late Emperor Kwang
Hsii that when he was a lad, he saw a bicy-
cle and insisted upon having its use ex-
plained to him. Tliis being done, he de-
manded one for himself. One of the best,
most expensive, and most gorgeous
" wheels " was bought, and the prince tried
to use it; but he neglected to tie up his
queue, or to wind it round his head as most
of his fellow countrymen do when riding
the bicycle.
Nobody dared touch the imperial queue
or to suggest that the scion of the imperial
214 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
house disgrace himself by imitating the ex-
ample of common people, and wind the dan-
gerous braid round his neck or his head.
The result was that the long pigtail quickly
became wound up in the hind wheel and the
prince had a bad fall. After that there was
no more bicycle riding for him !
But there were pleasures of a certain kind
permitted to boys of the imperial family;
such as boating on the lake within the
grounds of the palace in the Forbidden
City, that northern section of Peking which
was strictly reserved for the habitation of
the Court and its numerous retinues. The
lads were taught to ride; in the Manchu
fashion, to be sure, and that would hardly
have satisfied the ideals of our best horse-
men; for the saddle was a high, uncomfort-
able thing, the stirrups were cumbersome
and big, the horse or pony was never " bri-
dle wise," and its mouth was like an iron
vise. Then, too, the prince was not allowed
to ride alone; at the animal's head ran a
groom, when there was not a high official
assigned to this duty, and he led the pony
at a walk or a very gentle amble.
Archery was often converted into an exer-
cise from which the lads derived some pleas-
ure; yet even this "sport" was conducted
in a lazy fashion that would never have
satisfied a stout, healthy American lad.
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 215
The Mancbu prince took bis stand at the
spot indicated by the gray-haired Mancbu
general who was appointed to be bis teacher,
and was first carefully instructed as to the
proper postures, the grip of the bow,
the drawing of the arrow from the quiver,
the placing it against the bowstring, and the
correct " form " to be observed in drawing
the bow and letting the arrow fly. When
the arrows had all been discharged, an at-
tendant gathered them up and returned
them to the prince to be shot again. There
was no real exercise about it and no true
fun.
Falconry was another of the sports per-
mitted a young Manchu prince, and possibly
he may have derived some pleasure and phy-
sical benefit from this. But most of the
prince's time was given to his books; to
pouring over the Classics, learning what
such and such a sage had said on some
memorable occasion; why this or that one
of the prince's ancestors had given his de-
cision for or against a petition that had
come up to him through the Council of Min-
isters.
I fear that when all conditions of life sur-
rounding an imperial prince of the Manchu,
until lately reigning House, are considered
tlie verdict of a liearty American lad would
be emphatically against it as satisfactory or
216 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
enjoyable. Before leaving the Court, it
should be stated that when a little prince
grew big enough, some of the lads belonging
to the families of high rank courtiers were
compelled to be his playmates; but in no
possible circumstances were these permitted
to assert themselves ; they were compelled to
be little slaves to their imperial master, and
naturally the other boys of the Court tried
to escape the punishment of being playmates
to a prince.
Making what allowance is necessary for
difference in rank and dignity, the life of
Manchu boys belonging to families who were
near the throne, was somewhat the same as
that of a prince. There was rarely any-
thing of that freedom which is one of the
greatest charms of the boyhood of our chil-
dren. Going down the line of importance
and wealth, we should have found somewhat
similar conditions surrounding nearly all
the boys in China a score or two of years
ago. Amongst the gentry and the well-to-
do, education, that is, memorizing the Clas-
sics, was the highest ambition.
Usually the eldest son was trained to fol-
low in the footsteps of his father; if the
parent was a literary man, a mandarin, the
eldest son was educated to pass the ci\dl
service examinations and become a man-
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 217
darin. If the father was a banker, a mer-
chant, or a farmer, the duty of carrying on
the occupation devolved upon the eldest son,
save in exceptional cases that were ex-
tremely rare.
Now, all this has been changed. There
are no more young princes to be trained in
the Court, and too frequently to be made
accustomed to the licentiousness of that life.
Sons of all classes are now receiving an edu-
cation that is of real benefit, and as the boys
in China of this generation come to man-
hood, they will find themselves fitted to
associate on terms of the fullest equality
with their fellows from any other parts of
the world.
Instead of lazy, effeminate " plays '' of
the past, there are active games to play on
school grounds or college athletic fields
where there is an equality which is delight-
fully democratic. Doubtless a large ma-
jority of the Chinese parents will continue
to carry their little boys to the temple when
the child is a month old to have the entire
head shaved and the first name conferred;
but there will be very few repetitions of the
second sliaving process.
It is surprising how many Chinese parents
who are not themselves professing Chris-
tians, are asking Christian ministers to
218 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
baptize their children and give them a per-
sonal name which shall be the only one for
them to use throughout their whole lives.
The Chinese boy of former times derived
fully as much pleasure, in his opinion, from
the New Year's festivities as do our chil-
dren from the gifts, pleasures, and religious
or social ceremonies of Christmas. In a
certain way there was some similarity
between the two events. In China the birth-
day was that of a New Year and inciden-
tally it was the birthday of every one in the
realm of the gods, in the habitation of the
blessed dead, in the homes of the living.
For a Chinese baby was always two years
old on the first day of the first Moon of the
New Year following its birth, no matter
what may have been the actual day of its
nativity. Therefore a child born on the
27th day of the 12th Moon was reckoned to
be one whole year older than one born on
the 2d day of the 1st Moon of the following
year, although there might be only three
days' difference in their ages. From the
palace in the Forbidden City down to the
hovel of the beggar, there was something to
mark off the New Year as a time of jollity
and something very like our " Peace on
Earth."
Another x^leasure that the boy of the
humbler class had in larcer measure than
A CHINESE boy's LIFE 219
his friends who were better off than himself
in world's goods, was the visits to the ances-
tral tombs. Is it not true that our own
really poor people get more pleasure from
the one picnic in the year they attend, than
do those of us who are blessed with frequent
days of recreation? It was certainly true
in China, that boys who could count on just
that one day's outing took from it an im-
mense amount of pleasure to be treasured
up, perhaps, for the succeeding year. I feel
sure there is more pleasure in store for the
Chinese boys who are now growing up than
ever there was for their fathers !
CHAPTER XVII
A CHINESE GIRL'S LIFE
A LTHOUGH most of our students of so-
•^^ cial science say that there are sections
in some of the great American cities where
there are conditions of squalor and poverty,
equal to if not exceeding what are to be
found in any part of the globe; yet as a na-
tion we do not begin to know what poverty
is, as the word is used to describe conditions
in China, and God grant we never shall
learn the full Chinese meaning of that awful
word.
There are large areas of the Chinese Re-
public where the people do not know, from
one New Year's day to the next, what it is
to eat a full and hearty meal ; and there are
even larger areas wherein the people rarely
sit down to such a meal of really nutritious
food. The struggle for existence is not one
which merely makes the heads of the family
wonder what the next year, or the next sea-
son, or the next month, is going to bring;
it is one that does not permit many a father
and mother to say what to-morrow shall
give them and their little ones.
Amongst those millions who are literally
220
A CHINESE girl's LIFE 221
living from band to mouth, because tbere is
notbing reserved on tbe sbelves of tbe lar-
der, it is imperatively necessary for every
pair of bands in tbe family to contribute
somewbat to tbe support of tbe bousebold.
Hence it is tbat witb people so circum-
stanced tbe desire for boy children is para-
mount. Nature bas compelled those people
to realize tbat girls cannot be driven like
beasts of burden, as boys may be ; and even
if a native poet bas sung of the little damsels
as " a thousand pieces of gold," girls are
considered so undesirable that often a man
replies to the question, " How many children
have you?'' by mentioning the number of
bis sons, ignoring completely bis daughters,
who are looked upon as a misfortune to be
forgotten, if possible.
China, like Japan, is a land of children
and the traveler wonders whence come tbe
swarms of little folks who block the streets
of the city and sprawl along the roadway
through every village and hamlet. The doc-
trine of Malthus, that governments should
assert themselves to limit tbe birth of chil-
dren to tbe ability of their parents to pro-
vide for thom in childhood, educate them,
and give them a start in life, has never been
heard of in China, except by some students
of sociolog;N', who have not yet dreamt of
applying such laws to their own people.
222 OUE neighbors: the Chinese
In tlie circumstances it is hardly surpris-
ing that in certain districts, those wherein
the conditions of poverty are such as have
just been intimated, female infanticide is
frightfully common. In the great Hoang-
ho and Yang-tze valleys, where the devasta-
tion caused by floods is inevitably followed
by famine, and the condition of the poor is
absolutely hopeless, it is hardly to be won-
dered at that when a new baby is of the
wrong sex, its span of life is measured by a
few minutes, or an hour or two, or possibly
a day or so; and that it is the poor father
who takes upon himself the awful respon-
sibility of determining what shall be the
little girl's fate.
" It is absurd to argue that infanticide is
no more prevalent in China than in Eng-
land; or to describe it as a curse of the
land which devastates whole districts. Let
it be granted at once that most Chinese
parents would wish their children all to be
boys; and if such could be the case, there
would probably not be a country on the face
of the globe where infanticide was so rare
— even though in such a case there would,
in the course of a few generations, be no
infants at all and the whole race would die
out. It is doubtless true, however, that
cases have been known where so prevalent
was infanticide that locally girls could not
A CHINESE girl's LIFE 223
be obtained for marriage, and, as with the
Sabines of old, other districts had to provide
them." *
Sometimes, when conditions of life have
become acute and it is a question of all the
family starving quickly, or a few starving
slowly, even boys are sold to become slaves
if not something worse in a land where
sodomy is beastly fashionable; yet it is the
girls who are usually sacrificed first, and
these, too, become slaves, when they are not
compelled to follow a life of shame. It
must not always be taken for granted that
the little girl's corpse which is seen floating
seawards in a river, or left unburied by the
roadside for dogs or vultures to devour,
stands for another case of female infanti-
cide ; it may liave been that death came from
starvation or other natural causes, and that
pinching poverty forbade giving the little
one decent burial.
Having thus considered the most terrible
phase of a girl's life in China, as let us
hope may be said it was but is never again
to be, let us turn to those which are not so
repulsive; nay, may indeed be bright and
attractive. Yet if we begin with the im-
perial princesses of old times, or even dur-
ing the reign of the late Manchus, we find
that the life of a girl born within the im-
* Ball, J. Dyor, The Chinese at Home.
224 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
perial palace and of the imperial family,
was not often a happy one. For them there
was rarely the prospect of a happy married
life, because there were no consorts to be
had for them ; the difference of rank between
those of the blood royal and young men of
the highest native nobility, forbade the em-
peror giving his daughters to be the wives
of his subjects. Occasionally an alliance
with the son of a reigning family in a
neighboring foreign country was arranged
for a princess of the imperial family of
China, and she was sent away in great
state, an object of envy with all her less
fortunate sisters.
In the narrative of Marco Polo's adven-
tures, we read of his being entrusted with
the care of the Imperial Princess, whom
he conducted by ship to Persia, where she
was to become the wife of Arghun Khan,
himself a great-nephew of Kublai Khan.
There are, too, other instances of these dip-
lomatic marriages, but they are not many,
and usually the princesses of the imperial
Manchu house were doomed to celibacy. In
youth they were permitted to be Maids of
Honor to the empress, and when they were
older they frequently had to retire into a
monastery or retreat.
They, like most of the girls of China in
all classes, received very little education,
A CHINESE girl's LIFE 225
and for them life was rather a dreary exist-
ence. Amongst girls of the higher classes,
yet below the imperial circle, the life of a
girl was not necessarily a hard one. We
may not be able to think favorably of the
way they were given in marriage and of the
attitude of superiority assumed towards
them by the mother-in-law especially, yet
they had a certain consolation in the thought
that time would adjust matters, surely so
if they were so fortunate as to have sons.
In the homes of the well-to-do, and even in
those where the family had to be frugal, to
make both ends meet, yet not forever facing
the dreadful poverty which has been men-
tioned, provision was made to give bright-
ness and color to the little girPs life. She
had her place in the family outings and in
the collection of Nursery Rhymes which Dr.
Headland has kindly placed at our disposal
("Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes"), there
are plenty to show that when they could
afford to do it, if my curious expression is
understood, parents really loved their girl
babies almost as much as they did the little
boys.
Indeed, amongst those who did not have
to pinch and strain to keep the wolf away,
there were many Chinese who declared they
would rather have a girl child than not;
because then, when she approached the mar-
226 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
riageable age they could ask the young man
who was selected to be her husband, to
come and live with them years before the
wedding, and by adopting him spare them-
selves entirely the sorrows of parting with
their daughter.
The sincere followers of Confucius were
always shamefully neglectful about their
daughter's education ; yet, as I have already
said, it was not always true that girls had
no education at all.
The dress of a young girl in former times,
from her quaint coiffeur, suggesting yet not
imitating precisely that of her mother, down
to her brilliantly-colored robes, and pretty
little feet, if they were permitted to develop
naturally, or her awkward, misshapen,
cramped ones, was as attractive as one
could wish. As a bride she was gorgeously
arrayed, and her dower often meant a heavy
drain upon her father's purse, yet it seems
to have been willingly accepted whenever
the family means permitted. After the wed-
ding the young married woman changed the
style of dressing her hair, and her entire
costume, to conform to the rules of society.
With the coming of the first Christian
(Protestant) missionaries, began the im-
provement of conditions for Chinese girls.
At first it was found by the men who were
the pioneer representatives of the evangelis-
A CHINESE girl's LIFE 227
tic bodies to occupy the field, only a little
over a hundred years ago, that they could
do nothing with their work in the Chinese
families.
But when the wives of the first mission-
aries appeared, and later, more effectively,
when unmarried women from Christian
countries gave themselves for the work, it
was not long before they found their way
into the native homes, and then actually be-
gan the emancipation of the women of
China. What a marvelous change has
taken place within the lifetime of some who
are still working in the foreign field. Even
amongst Chinese who vehemently refuse to
put away the religion of their forefathers,
the position of the girls is so different from
what it was formerly, that they seem almost
to be new creatures.
The mission schools were the first to give
the girls some interest in life and the wisest
of the Chinese statesmen realized that the
progress of their country, for which they
themselves were hoping and working, could
not be achieved properly unless women were
taken into consideration. This meant that
girls must be prepared, when grown up,
to take upon themselves the duties of
women in a way that was without prece-
dent in Chinese history, and yet which was
recognized as both inevitable and desirable
228 OUR NEIGHBOES: THE CHINESE
in the changed, remodeled, progressive
China, and those same statesmen were as
eager to uplift the girls in education at
least, as were the missionaries.
I knew China when the most that could
be expected of women in that country was
that they might become Bible women, help-
ers, and interpreters for the foreign women
missionaries. It is difficult for me to real-
ize that there are Chinese young women
who have sole charge of hospitals; that
young girls are studying medicine and fit-
ting themselves to become expert nurses, and
in a thousand ways demonstrating most in-
contestibly that they are fully able to do
whatever their sisters of the West can do.
The life of the Chinese girl to-day is so
different from what her mother's was that
it is difficult to recognize society in that
land. There are, as has been intimated,
traces of liberty having been debased into
license; and the reactionary performances
of the Chinese suffragettes are, if possible,
more displeasing than are those of their
English sisters, simply because the contrast
between the normal and the abnormal is
greater in China than it is in Great Britain.
Yet I do not seriously apprehend that this
misconstruing of privileges, coming from
emancipation, into the right to be destruc-
A CHINESE GIEl's LIFE 229
tive, is at all likely to be permanent or con-
spicuously general in China.
It is not at all surprising that neither in
advanced Japan nor in progressive China,
has there yet been any apparent disposition
on the part of girls and young women to
take up the stage as a profession. In both
countries, until a very few years ago even in
Japan, the actors were considered as a class
so low in the social scale that it was deemed
a disgrace for any man of respectable
family to associate with them. Yet strange
and inconsistent as it must seem, parents
of the greatest refinement and purest morals
would take their daughters to witness per-
formances of dramas that were far from
being suited to young people, whether girls
or boys. Furthermore, all female parts
were taken by boys, and there were, there-
fore, no actresses.
Recently, as many know, the experiment
of having at least the principal female roles
interpreted by women, has been tried
amongst the Japanese, and some American
audiences have had the pleasure (?) of lis-
tening to at least one Japanese actress who
posed as a star. China has not yet ad-
vanced so far along this progressive path,
and it is very doubtful if the people will be
induced to countenance it for a very long
230 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
time to come. Social lines must be entirely
changed before it would be possible for a
respectable woman to appear on the stage,
and the drama itself will have to be remod-
eled before such a thing is possible.
In some of the girls' schools under the
management of foreign women teachers, the
pupils have been permitted and even encour-
aged to give private performances to which
their female friends w^ere admitted. Some
of those who were favored with the oppor-
tunity to witness these plays, say that many
of the girls displayed much ability in inter-
pretation of their characters and in the
reading of the lines.
There is one thing to say for Chinese girls
and women, which is that when they are
convinced that duty calls upon them to ad-
vocate a just cause, they display remarkable
ability to overcome their natural timidity,
and oftentimes they speak well in public.
The very first Chinese lady who visited
England for the purpose of asking greater
assistance than had been given towards help-
ing to bring out the Chinese women, was a
surprise to all. Her gentle force, her clear-
ness of presentation, and her facility of
speech, made an impression which caused
hearty response to her plea. The same
thing may be said of many Chinese young
women who have spoken to American audi-
ences.
CHAPTER XVIII
TRAVELING IN CHINA
THE carriages and carts which are
credited to the Chinese of a remote
past, and which have already been briefly
alluded to, were rather poor makeshifts for
traveling. Apparently their use was re-
stricted to the imperial family and officials
of government who represented the emperor.
Those for His Imperial Majesty himself
were doubtless very gorgeous affairs, so far
as exterior decoration was concerned, but we
should, I fear, be somewhat disposed to liken
them, veiy impolitely, to be sure, to the
gilded and bepictured boxes which cut such
an important figure in the processions of
circuses and menageries that sometimes
pass through our streets.
They were simply boxes, the floor of which
rested riglit on the axle, guiltless of springs
or any appliances to take up the jolting, and
the Chinese have not been conspicuous for
smooth roads, even if some of their highways
have been remarkably permanent. But a
road that is laid with great slabs of granite
which are not fitted together properly, can-
not be a very comfortable one to drive over.
231
232 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
The slabs slip away from one another, leav-
ing wide spaces into which the wheels
descend with a bump that nearly dislocates
every joint of the inside traveler, and no
amount of cushions can sufl&ce to diminish
greatly that jolting. The old bridges, too,
were usually made with similar huge granite
slabs either laid crosswise or longitudinally,
and these were, if possible, even greater tor-
tures than the roadways.
The draft animals were either bullocks or
horses. If the occupant of the carriage
were a person of great importance, or the
occasion demanded or justified the extrava-
gance, there might be two or three of these
draft animals strung in tandem : the wheel
horse or bullock would be harnessed into
the shafts and each one of the others was
hitched independently by traces — ropes
usually — direct to the axle of the vehicle;
so that it was impossible for the united
power of the animals to be given to the task
of drawing the carriage.
These closed carriages were entered, and
left, by the front which was open, by climb-
ing over the shaft as gracefully as could be
done: the driver sat right over the shaft
animal. If the rain drove in, or the wind
was too strong, or the sun beat in too
fiercely, there was a curtain to be let down
TRAVELING IN CHINA 233
and thus were the stuffiness and discomfort
of the interior increased.
There were, also, the carts at the service
of the traveler. These were simply open
boxes w4th low sides. The travelers stowed
away themselves and their belongings as
they liked; the first comer always appro-
priating the lion's share of the space, and
the most comfortable place, of course, and
made room for the rest only when compelled
to do so.
Another wheeled vehicle, especially pop-
ular in the north for going short distances,
was the wheelbarrow. It had a large wheel
in the center, with narrow platforms on
either side thereof upon which the travelers
reclined, resting against the center w'hich
served to protect them from the wheel.
Long handles projected toward the rear and
were held by the coolie who w^as the motive
power. He often eased his burden some-
what by a rope attached to the handles and
passing over his shoulders. Occasionally
an extra coolie — or even two or three —
was hitched to the front of the wheelbarrow
and when the road was fairly good, they
could trot along at six or seven miles an
hour. In some ways these Chinese wheel-
barrows recalled the Irish jaunting-car.
It was very amusing to see the proprietor
234 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of one of these wheelbarrows on the way
from his home to his customary stand in the
morning, or returning at nightfall. Instead
of trundling the vehicle in front of him as
we should expect him to do, he generally
took the various sections apart, divided
wheel, shafts, seat, etc., into two portions
which he slung at the ends of his long carry-
ing stick. Then he stooped down, put the
stick across one shoulder and raising the
load from the ground, carried the whole
thing away.
I have used the past tense in writing of
these various wheeled vehicles, but they are
all to be seen even now in parts of the coun-
try to which the railway has not pene-
trated, or where there are no long carriages
something like an omnibus plying regularly
along the highroad. But wheeled vehicles
do not seem ever to have been remarkably
popular with the Chinese traveler who had
but a short distance to go, or when his jour-
ney was somewhat lengthy, yet might be
broken at times where accommodations were
to be had at an inn.
In these cases, the traveler usually pre-
ferred to walk and combine business or
pleasure with the necessity for going from
home on his journey. If he were a literary
man or a philosopher, there would often
be memorial arches, raised in honor of some
TRAVELING IN CHINA 235
famous man, or to a widow whose faith-
fulness to the memory of her departed
spouse, or whose diligence in securing an
education for her sons, had appealed to the
people or the officials. Appreciation took
the form of a stone archway that looks
like a huge, over-ornate gateway; but with-
out the gates. Or there might be any one
of a hundred other things to attract the
attention of the traveler, when the leisure
of walking permitted of an examination
which could not be had were the traveler in
carriage, cart or wheelbarrow.
The itinerary merchant found many an
opportunity to turn a penny, if he was on
foot. But all Chinese prefer, whenever it
is possible, to travel by water, and there is
no country on earth of which it may so
fitly be said that the wisdom of Providence
is displayed in no way so striking as the
causing of rivers to flow past the large cities
and towns! I cannot give the credit due
for this brilliant (?) piece of logic.
So marked is the Chinese preference for
traveling by water, that frequently a jour-
ney of hundreds of miles and covering sev-
eral days, is taken rather than the overland
trip of a tenth tlie distance and of only a
few hours' duration. The coasting steam-
ers which ply between the various open
ports from Hongkong to Tieustin, and the
236 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
score or more of intermediate places are
always crowded, in the steerage at any rate.
The rivers are covered with crafts of all
sorts and kinds, and even the slow-going
cargo-boats will usually have their comple-
ment of passengers. Many of the passen-
ger crafts along the rivers, canals, and inte-
rior waterways, are barges with two or even
three decks, and into them human beings
are crowded in defiance of all regulations
that might lessen danger or contribute to
rescue in the event of accident. Those
barges are often towed by steam launches
and altogether too frequently one or more of
the tow — for it is not uncommon to see sev-
eral of them strung out behind the little
steamer — will be capsized in a collision or
some untoward mishap, and then the loss
of life is appalling; for boxed in like sar-
dines, as are the passengers, there is little
chance of escape or rescue.
When I first went to the Far East, in 18G6,
it was an unusual thing for a Chinese to
ask for first cabin accommodation in the
smaller English or Frencli steamers that
plied between Hongkong and Foochow, or
the larger vessels which came from Europe
and went on to Slianghai, or, again, the
coasters from Shanghai north, as well as
the river steamers on the Yang-tze.
This was not because of any disposition
TRAVELING IN CHINA 237
to refuse them the privilege; but it was
wholly due to the natives' proper ideas of
economy. They could go in the second class
for less that one-half the fare for a first
class ticket ; or in the steerage for very much
less than the second class fare, and their
ideas of comfort were not at all shocked
by the rough accommodations in the steer-
age. Besides, very few of the Chinese had
then come to like the cabin fare, and pre-
ferred the bowl of rice, the stews, and the
dried fish which were served in other quar-
ters.
All this has been entirely changed, and
the change is especially noticeable in the
mail steamers plying between Hongkong and
Singapore. In these it is often difficult to
get a first class cabin — or state-room —
unless application is made long before the
day of sailing, because those rooms are
likely to have been reserved by the rich Chi-
nese merchants who either live in the Straits
Settlements, or whose extensive business in-
terests require them to travel back and forth
frequently.
As many of them, whose homes are at
Singapore, or other towns of the Straits
Settlements, Burma, and elsewhere in those
Britisli possessions, are bona fide British
subjects, and properly tenacious as to their
rights, it would be impossible for the agents
238 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
of the British steamers to refuse them the
best the ship affords, provided they are
willing to pay the bill; and it would be so
impolitic for the French, German, or other
lines to do it, that Chinese saloon passen-
gers are always numerous; and they are
rarely in any way objectionable.
But the most comfortable way to travel
by land, if the distance is not too great, is
by the sedan chair. It is not markedly dis-
similar to the chair that is depicted in
English books of a hundred years or so ago,
and which is to be seen even in American
pictures of about that same period. The
tall, box-like structure has a seat at the
right height. It is entered from the open
front, when the rear carrier tips the chair
forward so that the passenger may step
over the carrying poles in front. Cushions
and arm rests add to the comfort; and pri-
vacy may be secured by lowering the side
curtains. On each side at about the level
of the inside arm rest, is a long pole stretch-
ing front and back. These are lashed to-
gether so that tliey will just fit nicely to
the bearers' shoulders. Usually there are
but two coolies and what they can do is
almost as surprising as are the feats cred-
ited to the famous Japanese jinrikishamen.
In the palmy days of the mandarins, by
an ingenious device of crossing short poles
TRAVELING IN CHINA 239
at front and back, and then lashing others
longitudinally to these, it was possible to
multiply the number of bearers until there
were as many as a dozen at each end of the
carrying poles. When the emperor went
abroad in his magnificent sedan chair, the
number of bearers was quite that many,
and they were carefully selected so as to
be of about equal stature and then they were
trained to keep step in equal stride so as
to eliminate all unpleasant swaying and
irregular motion.
Very often the sedan chair was increased
in size, longitudinally, until it became a
large palanquin or closed litter; the carry-
ing poles were greatly lengthened and firmly
lashed to the pack-saddles of bullocks or
horses, one in front and one behind, and
each of those animals was led by a groom.
In such a capacious vehicle, it was an easy
matter for an entire family to be stowed
away, provided the father was not too big
a man or the children not too numerous or
too large.
For traveling in remote districts, and es-
pecially in mountain regions, the Chinese
travelers preferred the mountain sedan
chair, which was similar to tlie one that
has been described, only it was rather
lighter; but saddle-horses were perhaps more
popular, and this last mentioned mode of
240 ouE neighbors: the Chinese
travel is practically the only one which
foreign men would think of using. Ladies
and children, foreigners or natives, going
to mountain resorts make use of the
jinrikisha, the sedan chair, or the horse
litter.
Of the Chinese railways there is little to
say. They are very commonplace and the
second and third class coaches are always
overcrowded ; for it is amazing how the Chi-
nese peasants have taken to this way of
traveling. The American style of car is
generally most common, although some lines
display a preference for the European com-
partment carriage. On most of the lines
something remains to be done in the matter
of cleanliness and creature comfort; but
doubtless such defects will be remedied as
time goes on and passengers assert them-
selves more vigorously. The fact that one
can to-day speak of the " thousands of miles
of railways in China," is in itself a sign of
what a tremendous change has come over
that land within a decade or two.
Traveling naturally brings to mind hotel
accommodations. At all the principal open
ports, at Hongkong and Macao, some of the
smaller ports even, there are excellent hotels
and boarding houses for the convenience of
Western travelers. These hardly need to be
considered here, and it is sufl&cient to say
TRAVELING IN CHINA 241
that there are " European " hotels, con-
nected with which there are usually good
restaurants, and " American " hotels, in
which' the rate per day includes room and
meals with full attendance. This latter
style of hostelry is decidedly more popular
even with visitors from Europe than is the
kind of hotel to which they are generally
supposed to be accustomed.
The few travelers who leave the beaten
tracks and plunge into the interior, must
be prepared to put up with what the coun-
try affords. The apartments may be clean,
but the chances against it are rather more
than even. The earliest European travel-
ers in China, as a rule, give the hotels a
pretty fair reputation, and they speak of
the landlords in a favorable way, w^hich
cannot, I fear, be confirmed by those who
visit the remote provinces nowadays.
Of food, except in the unfortunate dis-
tricts which happen to be temporarily
famine-stricken, there is usually an abun-
dance of its kind. The principal raw meat
offered for sale is pork ; tlie vegetables
rarely include the useful potato, but of
chickens, ducks, and eggs tliere are always
plenty. Bread is practically an unknown
quantity, and for it the ever present boiled
rice is a satisfactory substitute or not ac-
cording to individual taste. Although the
242 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Chinese do use salt in the preparation of
food, unlike our Japanese neighbors, it is
well for the stranger to provide himself
with a bottle of this important condiment.
The best way for tourists to get along is
to secure the services of a cook who has
some qualifications as an interpreter in the
particular districts it is proposed to visit,
and let him prepare all the meals, purchas-
ing the raw materials as he can. He will,
of course, take his commission, " squeeze,"
that is an established custom in the Far
East ; but this unlawful addition to the mess
bill will hardly bankrupt the traveler !
CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE CHINESE LIVE
ENOUGH has been said at various places
in this book, of the habitations of our
Chinese neighbors, and it is not where they
live but rather upon what they feed to live,
that this chapter treats. I ought, perhaps,
to correct a misapprehension which some-
thing that has been said about the height
of the Chinese residence may cause. It is
true that the people dislike climbing up
more than one flight of stairs, and conse-
quently few of their houses are more than
two stories in height; yet in crowded cities
where land values are somewhat on a parity
with those of the great places in other lands,
houses run up to three, four, five, or per-
haps more stories, and are as crowded as
are tlie tenements of any place on earth;
for sanitary inspectors to see that the proper
allowance of cubic feet of air space for
each occupant of a room, have not yet been
appointed in China, or permitted to gain
an unlawful livelihood by accepting bribes
to see that regulations are flagrantly dis-
obeyed. Perhaps these conditions will soon
be acconi])lished I
243
244 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
On my return from the first sojourn in
China, I was constantly asked how I got
along in that land for food; and if I was
compelled to conform to the native custom
of eating dogs and cats and rats. It
seemed to be taken as a rule, of course,
that those animals constituted the staple
diet of the Chinese, although it was always
admitted that they ate some rice, and occa-
sionally partook of fish when the daintier
animals I have named were not procurable.
I have never taken the time to run to
earth the absurd idea that the Chinese pre-
fer dogs and cats and rats to all other
kinds of fresh meat ; and if I were to under-
take the task, I really should not know
where to begin. The fable is mentioned in
the most casual way by plenty of writers,
but they always ridicule the notion, just as
I do, and not one of them has ever taken
the trouble to tell us how the myth started.
I have no doubt that some poor Chinese
would gladly eat a steak cut from a fat
dog, or a cat chop or a rat stew, if he were
on the verge of starvation; I am sure I
should do so in such circumstances.
In the early years of the eighteenth cen-
tury, when emigi'ants from Europe were
swarming across the ocean in sailing ves-
sels that were inadequately supplied with
stores, a rat fetched eighteen pence, and a
HOW THE CHINESE LIVE 245
mouse sixpence : or, converted into our pres-
ent currency, those prices would equal about
fifty and twenty cents.
I know, too, that there are extraordinary
superstitions rife amongst the Chinese about
the efficacy of certain parts of these animals
for the cure of some diseases. Rats' meat
was supposed by some to be particularly
good as an aphrodisiac, and the curious
traveler might, if he hunted carefully, find
a shop wherein it is sold for this purpose;
but I rather doubt it.
So, too, the inquisitive stranger might
find a shop, patronized by old women whose
hair is falling out too rapidly to please
their vanitj', wherein rats' meat is sold to
be prepared as a stew with certain other
things. This dish is not eaten as a table
delicacy to gratify the palate, but because
it is supposed to stop the hair coming out,
and even to restore the growth of that
which is considered the crown of a wom-
an's glory as much, in China as anywhere
else.
In the south it used to be considered that
the flesh of black cats and dogs (the density
of the color enhancing their value) would
prevent the diseases common in midsum-
mer, and secure the eater's gcMieral health
tliroughout tlie ensuing year; but this again
is, I fancv, an old-wives' tale that is now
246 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
consigned to the realms of myth and ex-
ploded superstition.
Yet this idea of the queer gastronomic
habits of the Chinese is strangely persist-
ent, and it is not six months since my at-
tempt to refute the statement that dogs
and cats and rats are a staple article of
food even in the progressive Chinese Repub-
lic of to-day, was received with a plain look
of incredulity, and poorly-concealed sur-
prise that a man who pretended to have
lived amongst the Chinese had made such
poor use of his opportunities as not to know
what everybody ought to.
At some of the " swell " restaurants in
Chinese cities, dog meat used to be served by
name in various ways, and it was decidedly
not a cheap dish. But even so, if — as was
always the case — the puppies were fed
from the time they were weaned upon noth-
ing but good rice, milk, and other clean, fit-
ting food, and carefully kept from roaming
about to pick up anything filthy, I fail to
see that their meat was one bit more un-
wholesome or repulsive in any way than is
that of a young calf; and the same thing
may be said of kittens, for when they were
offered as a dish, they too had been raised
in the same way.
As a matter of fact, our Chinese neigh-
bors are the most sanitary and wisest eaters
HOW THE CHINESE LIVE 247
in the Far East. Most of their food is well
] cooked ; if this were not true there would
I be far greater ravages from cholera and
zymotic diseases than there is, for the few
) vegetables and fruits which they eat raw
are not cultivated in the most sanitary
manner. The way they use fertilizer is not
conducive to the best results as preventive
of infectious disease, because of the uni-
versal use of night-soil for this purpose.
Beef is now far more popular than it
used to be, because formerly the animals
were considered too useful to be slaugh-
tered, and when they had outlived their use-
fulness as farm animals, there was too
little flesh left on their poor bones to make
a decent meal; while what little there w^as
was too tough to yield to the most skilful
cook's treatment. Mutton was and is com-
mon and good in the north. It has always
been practically unknown in the south for
there was no suitable grazing land until
the extreme western part of the country
was reached, where the hill pastures were
not cultivable; there it becomes popular
again.
The Chinese who gave any sort of alle-
giance to Buddhistic teachings, always re-
fused to conform to the alleged injunction
to refrain from eating flesli of any kind.
Consequently everything in the meat line
248 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
that they could afford to eat (that is when
the animal was not considered more use-
ful in some other way than as food) has
always been consumed, from the flesh of
wild animals down to young chickens, duck-
lings, and goslings.
Poultry, including chickens, ducks and
geese, is plentiful ; the last mentioned being
the best of all. The Chinese are very fond
of game birds as food ; swan, pheasant, quail,
and even the peacock are eaten by those
w^ho can afford to do so. My Chinese
friends assured me that eggs which had
been preserved in salt for two or three years
are particularly good; but I was always
willing to take their word for it without
insisting upon proving the truth of what
they said by personal experiment.
There certainly is no such thing as a
sensible dispute about what kinds of food
are of good taste (de gustibus non est dis-
piitandum). The Chinese gourmet turns
away from the Englishman's slice of roast-
beef, when the blood follows the knife; or
the German's raw beefsteak, or the Ameri-
can's mince pie; or the Frenchman's snails,
with just the same disgust that we feel at
his two-year-old eggs or his saute of fat
puppy dogs ! I am sure my Chinese friends
have to overcome quite as much prejudice
before they learn to appreciate a terrapin
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HOW THE CHINESE LIVE 249
stew, as I did before I realized that sharks'
fins, and birds' nest soup were quite pala-
table.
If there is precious little that treads the
earth or flies in the air which Chinese will
not eat, it is perfectly true that of the
things which live in the sea, all is fish that
comes to the Chinese net; and the wonder
is that the close-meshed nets which they
drag in the smallest stream, or haul along
the bottom of the sea, had not long ago de-
pleted both inland and sea waters of every-
thing like animal life. Yet thanks to a
prodigal Nature which has provided that
fish shall reproduce by the millions and
hundreds of millions, the supplies appear
to be as bountiful as ever.
Every device that the ingenuity of man
can accomplish is made use of to capture
the highly prized inhabitants of the sea,
no matter what their size may be. Besides
the commonest ones, with which every one
is familiar, there are some which are rather
unusual, N The fish are induced to jump
into boats by hanging over the sides painted
boards in the daytime, or by a lantern
adroitly placed at night. Long guiding
nets are set in shallow water and these lead
to " pounds " ; then tlie fishermen, by clap-
ping boards together, pounding on any
metallic vessel with sticks, and by making
250 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
a frightful din in any way they can, drive
the fish from deep water into these pounds.
Many trained cormorants are also used
to assist the fishermen; and — as is the
case in Japan — these birds are furnished
with a collar that is just tight enough to
prevent the bird swallowing the fish. The
collar has to be removed when the bird has
been despoiled of three or four of its cap-
tures, and the cormorant allowed to take
its toll; otherwise it will sulk and refuse
to catch anything.
One of the most satisfactory ways of tak-
ing a holiday in China used to be (and I
presume it is still popular) to go off for a
week or so in a houseboat. Those craft —
before the days of the luxurious and more
speedy yacht — were either native boats
converted to suit the foreign owner's habits,
or built expressly for him. I shall not take
time to describe one fully, only I Avill say
that we old-timers, who know both the
houseboat and the steam yacht, unanimously
give our preference to the former.
There was always some purpose in these
trips — a nominal one, if not really a se-
rious one ; we went to shoot sea-fowls, or to
catch fish, or to visit some temple or
famous place. One cook and our " boys,"
as men's body-servants were called, accom-
panied us, and two or three times a day a
HOW THE CHINESE LIVE 251
fisherman would come alongside to offer
live fish for sale; they had been caught in
his nets and then kept alive in the well
amidships of his boat, the water being fre-
quently renewed. The hucksters would
come with whatever they had, and occa-
sionally, if we were in a very civilized sec-
tion, the traveling butcher would pay us a
visit. Fruits, nuts, sweetmeats (of their
kind, and rarely purchased for us,) were
plentiful ; and with what we had in the
well-supplied store room, we lived like
kings.
If the Chinese do not vie with the Rus-
sians in the consumption of caviare, they
are certainly their rivals in eating the flesh
of the sturgeon. This fish is not, of course,
found in the south ; but in winter plenty are
taken in the Sungari River, and other
streams of Mongolia and Manchuria. The
best of the captures used to be hurried off
to Peking to be served at the imperial table,
being considered a great delicacy.
It is a mistake to suppose we have taught
the Chinese much about harvesting ice to
preserve provisions. Long ago they cut
and stored ice — in the north of course —
and made good use of it in summer. The
only thing we can claim in this matter is
to have made the ice accessible to those who
formerly could not afford to buy it, by
252 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
erecting plants for the manufacture of arti-
ficial ice at some of the ports. Yet to show
how purely artificial is this taste for ice
and iced drinks, I may say that during all
the years of my first sojourn in China, I
saw ice just once. The deep wells were
quite sufficient to cool our drinks and pre-
serve food. The Chinese themselves knew
this as well as we did.
When the time came for me to leave Swa-
tow and return home, several of my na-
tive friends joined together to entertain me
at a farewell banquet. The invitations to
this were sent to all the foreign men of the
community, excepting those who, our hosts
knew well, were " not in our set." Those
invitations were huge pieces of red paper
on which an expert chirographist had writ-
ten in beautiful Chinese script, not the
usual request to come and " drink a cup of
samshu/^ but to come and " partake of a
modest meal in European style." My hosts
engaged the whole of a large restaurant
and then borrowed several cooks and a num-
ber of " boys " from the foreign households.
They sent off to Hongkong for ice that cost
them pretty nearly twenty-five cents a
pound, and they did all they could to make
it a very " swell " affair. They succeeded
remarkably well, and if they themselves did
HOW THE CHINESE LIVE 253
not actually enjoy tlie food, they certainly
made a very clever pretense at doing so.
Such entertainments are simply common-
place now, but they were not so in Swatow
in the middle of the last century.
CHAPTER XX
THE WORLD AND THE NEW BEPUBLIC
OUR Chinese neiglibors have, I think I
may safely say, a feeling towards our-
selves which is rather warmer and more
friendly than is that which they have for
some of the other peoples of the world.
There never was any disposition on the part
of the American government to compete
with some of the European nations in get-
ting possession of desirable ports along the
Chinese coast. The " grab game " which
began in the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, was never played by the United
States.
It seems hardly necessary to go over the
whole record of this unfair and displeasing
behavior of some other nations. Whether
we say that the first move was that of Great
Britain or that of Portugal, does not matter
very much. The inevitable result of the
attempt to force opium upon the Chinese
was that Canton, the original dwelling
place of foreigners in China, became al-
together too inhospitable and the British
merchants moved from that place to Macao ;
but the latter place was not found to be
254
THE NEW REPUBLIC 255
satisfactory in any way and so this com-
munity moved to an almost uninhabited
island which is now known as Victoria Is-
land, and upon which has grown up the
important city of Ilongkong.
Before long, and as the result of a war,
that was victory for Great Britain and de-
feat for China, this island was ceded to
Great Britain. Since then Great Britain
has obtained cession of a large tract north
of Hongkong and across an arm of the sea.
This extension is called Kowloon. Be-
sides, Great Britain has a lease, which is
nominally terminable in certain circum-
stances, of Weihaiwei.
When the war between China and Japan
came to an end, the latter government asked
and obtained a lease of the Liaotung Penin-
sula. Then Russia, supported by Germany
and France, compelled Japan to relinquish
this concession, and in a very short time
the lease was transferred to Russia.
Thereupon Great Britain, unwilling to see
such a rival getting a position of vantage,
insisted upon having a lease of the port,
Weihaiwei, and the surrounding territory.
Going back to Macao, the Portuguese
rights at that place were secured by deceit.
Tlie French having despoiled Cliina of ter-
ritory in the southeastern part of Asia,
trying to include the ishind of Elainan;
256 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
and the large colony Indo-China is the re-
sult. Then Germany, apparently jealous
of what her rivals were securing in China,
obtained a lease of Kiaochao. The last-
mentioned spoliation came as a result of
something which could not have been made
an excuse for " grabbing " in any other part
of the world. Some German missionaries
were assaulted and murdered by a rabble in
Shangtung Peninsula and Germany exacted
heavy indemnity as well as the cession of a
tract of land. The justification for this
demand was about the same as if a mob in
the United States should assault some
Austro-Hungarian Slavs, and tlien the
government of that country should take pos-
session of a harbor on the New Jersey
coast and demand a lease thereof which
would amount practically to permanent
possession.
In all of this appropriating of Chinese
territory, the United States has taken no
part and this fact has operated to our ad-
vantage. The American government al-
ways tried to prevent our citizens from tak-
ing any part in the nefarious opium trade;
but China is so far away from us that it
was impossible to control our merchants
absolutely. But wlien the Chinese govern-
ment and people evinced a disposition to
stop the opium trade and to prevent culti-
THE NEW REPUBLIC 257
vation of the poppy, our government and
people have been more than willing to
render every assistance possible.
Bishop Brent, of the American Episco-
pal Church, whose diocese is the whole of
our Philippine possessions, was the chair-
man of the international convention held
at Shanghai to express the determination
of practically all the Great Pow^ers to assist
China in obliterating the curse. With
Bishop Brent were associated actively, rep-
resentatives of all missionary bodies operat-
ing in China, and there were also a number
of influential merchants who lent their
countenance to the commendable movement.
This has likewise had an excellent effect
upon our Chinese neighbors.
It is hardly necessary to dwell at any
length upon the success of American mis-
sionary bodies in their efforts along the
most varied lines. Not only have they ex-
erted themselves in the matter of Christian
propaganda, but their men and women who
were skilled in the healing art, as well as the
great number of teachers who were not os-
tensibly propagandists, have done a good
work that has been appreciated by even the
Manchu rulers, officials, and many manda-
rins in all parts of the country.
The recognition of the Republic of Chinji
which has been made by our government
258 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
was not as prompt as it might Jiave been,
and yet the fact that among the Great
Powers we were the first to move in this
matter has had the most salutary effect. It
is, however, rather doubtful if the other
Powers follow our example very promptly.
We may be quite sure that Russia will not
do so if there is the remotest chance of sup-
porting the Mongolians in their disposition
to cut themselves off from their allegiance
to the new Republic.
It is not likely that Japan will be very
prompt in following our example. Great
Britain, France, Italy, and possibly Aus-
tria-Hungary may recognize the Republic
before long. Germany, also, may find it
advisable to do the same thing and there
is some indication of this to be found in the
way in which the recent Chinese loan was
subscribed for in both London and Berlin.
That loan was opened for subscription on
May 21, 1913, at the usual hour for begin-
ning business in both of those financial cen-
ters. By eleven o'clock in the forenoon the
loan had been so heavily oversubscribed
that the banks in both cities closed their
lists. In a very short time options for se-
curing blocks of the loan were selling at a
premium of one per cent. In the face of
this it seems hardly possible that the gov-
ernments of both those countries can long
THE NEW REPUBLIC 259
refuse to recognize the government of the
country whose bonds they seem to appre-
ciate so highly.
The Chinese people, of course, have some
feeling about the attitude of the United
States towards Mongolians; that is but
natural, for our Chinese neighbors are hu-
man beings and are governed by the same
sort of feelings as those which control our-
selves. Yet it should always be remem-
bered that the Manchu government was op-
posed to their people going away from
home, and did not encourage the Pacific
Coast coolie traflSc. It was contended that
when a Chinese went away from home, un-
less he secured official permission, most
readily granted when the private trip was of
a religious nature, he forfeited certain of his
rights, and in some cases this position was
so strongly maintained that the expatriates
were forbidden to return upon penalty of
death.
This view of the matter was not fully
shared by the people of China generally,
and consequently they did not at all like to
have the gates of America closed against
tliem. Still, officially, tlie right of one na-
tion to determine for itself what shall be
done in such matters has never been dis-
puted by competent Chinese publicists. It
is probable, however, that there may come
260 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
a movement in China to secure for the peo-
ple of that country something akin to the
treatment which the United States accords
people from other parts of the world.
Intelligent Chinese visitors to our coun-
try have availed themselves of the oppor-
tunity to visit sections wherein the numbers
of people of southeastern Europe are so
great that frequently the visitor does not
hear a word of English spoken. The
character of many of these settlements, if
the word may be properly used in such con-
nection, is not one which inspires the visi-
tor with great respect for a government
which discriminates against the orderly,
intelligent and hard-working Mongolian in
favor of the oftentimes turbulent and lazy
European.
There should be some consideration given
to the fact that w^hile the United States was
one of the latest of the Western Powers to
become acquainted with the Chinese, yet
the first truly important mission which the
Chinese government sent abroad was under
the personal supervision of an American
diplomat, Anson Burlingame, who tried
earnestly to impress upon the people of
America, and Europe as well, that the Chi-
nese government and people were entitled
to consideration. There is no disposition
here to overlook the fact that Burliugame's
THE NEW REPUBLIC 261
enthusiasm led liim almost too far, yet had
his plea been reasonably successful it is
probable conditions would now be some-
what different from what they are. In the
important countries of the world, there
seems to be none of the abject fear of the
Mongolian which is conspicuous in parts of
the United States. Yet our Chinese neigh-
bors know as well as we do that the greater
part of the opposition to them in the United
States comes from, or is influenced by, peo-
ples who are not themselves true Ameri-
cans.
The recognition of the Republic must, I
think, go a little further than the merely
perfunctory act. The old China was an
almost immovable body; it was only by the
most strenuous effort that a little of the
inertia was overcome here and there; but
when it was possible to persuade officials
and landed proprietors to try the experi-
ment of building railways and opening up
resources of various kinds, the profitableness
of the ventures became apparent at once.
Such possibilities have scarcely more than
reached the experimental stage of exploita-
tion. If they are to be pushed forward it
must be as an accompaniment to tlie recogni-
tion of China's integrity. In this view of
tlie case, the world has a duty towards the
Chinese l\epul)lic whicli must be recognized
262 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
even if that recognition means to interfere
on China's behalf with the illegitimate
plans of Russia, Japan, and possibly other
Powers,
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Ball, J. Dyer, The Chinese at home, 1911.
Bard, E., Chinese life in town and country, 1905.
Beach, H. P., Dawn on the hills of T'ang, 1905.
Beaks, H. A., China, 1909.
Blakeslee, C. H., China and the Far East, 1910.
Bland, J. 0. P., Houseboat life in China, 1909.
Bland, J. 0. P., Eecent events and present policies
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Bland, J. 0. P., and Backhouse, E., China under
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Candler, Edmund, Tlie unveiling of Lhasa, 1905.
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263
264 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
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Curtin, J., The Mongols, 1908.
Curtin, J., Journey in Southern Siberia, 1909.
Curtis, William Elvery, Turkestan, "the heart of
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Deasy, Henry H. P., In Tibet and Chinese Turk-
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Dingle, E. J., Across China on foot, 1911.
Dingle, E. J., China's revolution, 1911-1912, 1912.
Elias, F., The Far East: China, Korea, and
Japan, 1911.
Ferguson, W. N., Adventure, sport, and travel on
the Tibetan steppes, 1911.
Geil, William E., The great wall of China, 1909.
Geil, William E., The eighteen capitals of China,
1911.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 265
Gerrare, "W., Greater Eussia [Manchuria], 1904.
Giles, Herbert A., The religions of ancient China.
Giles, Herbert A., China and the Chinese, 1902.
Giles, Herbert A., The civilization of China, 1911.
Giles, Herbert A., China and the Manchus, 1912.
Goodrich, J. K., The coming China, 1911.
Gowen, H. H., Outline history of China, 1913.
Grew, J. C, Sport and travel in the Far East,
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Groot, J. J. M. de. The religion of the Chinese,
1910.
Gulick, Sidney L., The white peril in the Far
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Headland, Isaac T., Chinese Mother Goose
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Headland, Isaac T., Chinese boys and girls, 1901.
Headland, Isaac T., Our little Chinese cousin,
1903.
Headland, Isaac T., Court life in China, 1909.
Headland, Isaac T., China's new day, 1912.
Hedin, Sven A., Through Asia, 1899.
Hcdin, Sven A., Central Asia and Tibet, 1903.
Hedin, Sven A., Trans-Himalaya, 1909.
Hedley, J., Tramps in dark Mongolia, 1910.
Hirth, F., Ancient history of China, 1908.
Holcoml)o, Chester, The real Chinese question,
1900.
Holcombo, Clicstcr, The real China, 1909.
Holdieh, Tliomas H., Tibet, the mysterious, 1909.
Hooker, ^r.. Behind the scenes in Peking, 1911.
Jack, E. L., The back blocks of Cliina, 190-1:.
Jack, K. L., The great wall of China, 1911.
266 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
Jernigan, Thomas R., China in law and com-
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Johnston, R. F., The lion and dragon in northern
China, 1910.
Kemp, E. G-., The face of Manchuria, Korea, and
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Kendall, E. K., A wayfarer in China, 1913.
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1911.
McCormick, F., The Flowery Republic, 1913.
Macgowan, John, Sidelights on Chinese life,
1905.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 267
Macgowan, John, Men and manners of northern
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1907.
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1908.
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1908.
Parker, Edward H., John Chinaman and a few
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1910.
Pitman, N. H., Chinese playmates; or, the boy
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Pumpelly, Eaphael, Explorations in Tibet, 1905.
Rockliill, William W., Inquiry into the popula-
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268 OUR neighbors: the Chinese
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 269
Wildman, Eounsovelle, China's open door; a
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INDEX
INDEX
Aborigines, 13 Barbers, 97.
Access to Chinese homes, Beauty of Chinese women,
70, 152.
Advanced Chinese women, Beef and mutton liked,
105. 247.
Agriculture in China, 25, Betrothal, 75.
94.
American classification of
Chinese, 23.
Ammianus - Marcellinus,
historian, 195.
Ancestor worship, 73
"Book of Changes," 56.
"Book of Odes," 55.
Boys, in imperial palace,
207; of Manchu fam-
ilies, 216; otliers, 217.
Boys' games, 111.
Ancestral line, importance. Brent, Bishop, 257.
73. Bride, lonely home life, 80.
Ang mau kui, "red-haired Burlingame, A., 200.
devils," 151.
Animal flesh as medicine,
etc., 245.
Appeal of Chinese Govern-
ment to Christian peo-
ples, 61.
Archery, 214.
Arches, memorial, 234.
Areas of China, 22.
Astrologers and doctors,
Chinese, in southwest-
ern Asia, 201.
Athletics, 110; modern,
217.
Babylonians, 6.
Ball, J. Dyer, 223.
Bank-notes, early Chinese,
89, 90.
Banquet, farewell, 252.
Baptism now popular, 217.
273
Calendar trees, 52.
"Capping verses," 110.
Carpino, Friar John de
Piano, 87.
Carriage driving, 106.
Carriages, 231.
Catching fish, 249.
Catenary curve of roofs,
12.
"Cathay," derivation of
name, 198; now a poeti-
cal term, 199.
Ceremony at graves, 104.
Ceres [Seres], land of,
88.
Character of former edu-
cation, 62.
Chi Hwangti, destruction
of books, 47, 48; his
superstition, 129.
274
INDEX
China, areas, 22; as a
united State, 16; deriva-
tion of name, 47 ; early
knowledge of, 194; na-
tural features, 24; popu-
lation, 23.
"China's Sorrow," Hoang-
ho, 27.
Chinese, a yellow people,
149; civil engineers, 69;
confusion of, 141; demo-
cratic, 171; education,
24 ; fastidious about
food, 248; feeling about
American exclusion of
Mongolians, 259; feeling
towards Americans, 254;
girls and women as pub-
lic speakers, 230; his-
tory, 7; industrious, 87,
90; knowledge of Roman
Empire, 197; oblique
eyes, a fiction, 140; pas-
toral and agricultural
people, 12; sanitary eat-
ers, 246; settlement in
Shensi, 12; visitors to
U. S. criticize discrim-
ination, 260; who are
they? 2.
Chinese flag, 20.
Chinese gourmets, 146.
Chou dynasty, 14.
Christian Chinese formerly
debarred from Civil Ser-
vice, 60.
Chun g-Kwoh, "Middle
Kingdom," 9.
Civil engineers, Chinese,
69.
Classes, society, 45, 53.
Classics, commentaries on,
57.
Clever military trick, 50.
Coffin-makers, 100.
Commercial intercourse,
205.
Comprehensive education,
recent, 68.
Confucius, 53, 128.
Conservatism of Chinese
farmers, 251.
Consideration for women,
106.
Cormorants, fishing, 250.
Creation myths, 30, 31.
Cricket-fights, 109.
Cruelty of courtiers, 128.
Curtin, J., 155.
Deforestation of China,
28.
Der Ling, Princess, 139.
Desai-chan, father-in-law
of Genghis Khan, 159.
Destruction of the Clas-
sics, 46.
Diff'erence, facial, Chinese
and Caucasians, 151.
Diiference between peoples
of China, 141.
Digni^ty of commercial
men, 115.
Dissipation at Court, 127.
Distinction between liter-
ati and others, 114.
Dogs, cats, and rats, as
food, 244.
Dominican missionaries,
200.
Doolittle, J., "Social Life
of the Chinese," 59.
Draft animals, 232.
Dwellings, 82.
Dzungaria, 189.
Earth, mvth of evolution,
33.
Education, now consistent,
67; specialized, 24.
INDEX
275
Effect of recent wars, 67.
Empress Dowager, the
great, 139, 208.
Engineers, Chinese, on Ti-
gris River, 200.
Essays, 66.
Europeans' acquisition of
Chinese territory, 255.
Evolution of man, theo-
ries, 2.
Falconry, 215.
Fan kwei, "foreign devils,"
151.
Farmers, conservative, 25.
Fishermen, 95.
Five units of Chinese Re-
public, 21.
Flag, Chinese, 20, 21.
Folk-lore, 57.
Food in the interior, 241.
Foot battledore and shut-
tlecock, 110.
"Forcing the City Gates,"
game like Prisoners'
Base, 112.
Foreign athletics, 113.
Former education of chil-
dren, 59.
Franciscan missionaries,
200.
Fuh-hi, first of "The Five
Emperors," 36.
Fung-shui, 30.
Gastronomies, 147.
Genghis Khan, 156; in-
vasion of China, 162;
legends about, 157.
Giles, H. A., on "Story of
the Three Kingdoms,"
51.
Girls, Confucian neglect
of their education, 226;
dress, 226 ; generally,
221; improvement in
their education, 226 ; in
imperial palace, 220;
life not usually hard,
225; their advance, 227,
228.
Go-between, marriage, 74.
Gobineau, Count, on races
of man, 3.
Gordon, "Chinese," 187.
Gossiping, 105.
"Grab game" of land,
254.
Graves, 103.
Guilds, 116.
GutzlafT, Charles, 65.
Hair-dressing, 144.
Hair, growth, 159.
Han dynasty, 132.
Headland, I. T., 139; chil-
dren's games. 111.
Headlev, John, 181.
Hedin,^Sven, 167, 192.
Himalaya Mountains, 168.
Hoang-ho, Yellow River,
"China's Sorrow," 27.
Home-life, 83.
Honesty of Chinese mer-
chants, 96.
"Honored Ones," 7.
Hotels, 240.
Houseboat life, 250.
Houses, 243.
Hue, Abb6, experience with
Cliinese surgeon, 89.
Hwang-ti, his benefac-
tions, 39.
Ice harvesting, 251.
Ideographs, explanation,
13.
Imitation, Chinese adept,
97.
Infanticide, 222.
276
INDEX
Influence of dissolute
women, 131.
Insignia of literati, 122.
Internal waterways, 8.
Islamism introduced, 183.
Jumping to a conclusion,
195.
Kao Ti's ruse, 132.
Korpue, fortune-telling,
124.
Keramic art, possibilities,
92.
Kite-flying, 109.
Klaproth, J., 130.
Koran, objection to its
translation, 184.
Kwang Hsii, late emperor,
139.
Lakes, 28.
Language, differences, 142.
Lassen, C, G«rman Orient-
alist, 195.
Later intercourse, Chinese
and Europeans, 203, 214.
Literati, obstructionists,
49.
Literature, 45.
Lost art, keramic, may be
recovered, 93.
Low classes, 120.
Mahometan mosques in
China, 181.
Mahometan rebellions in
China, 185, et seq.
Mahometans in China,
180; friendly to Euro-
peans, 181; their indus-
tries, 100-193.
Malthusianism, 221.
Mamelukes, 156.
Manchu Government op-
posed to foreigners, 204.
Manchu monopoly of of-
fices, 138.
Manchuria, 123.
Manchurians, 165.
Man's pleasures, 110.
"Man-wheel," boys' game,
113.
Markets, 96.
Marriage, 72 ; go-between,
74; imperial princesses
and strangers, 224.
Married life, 81.
"Matching rhymes," 110.
Maternal instinct, 112.
Men of T'ang, 10.
Merchant class, position
higher than in Japan,
114.
Migrations, 8.
"Milky Way," legend, 42.
Ming dynasty, 138.
Modern examination papers,
66.
Mongol, definition, 154 ;
etymology of word, 156;
incursions, 156.
Mongol army, 163.
Mongolia, 23, 164.
Mongols and Manchus dif-
ferent from Cliinesc,
166.
Monopoly of oflSces by
Manchus, 138.
Moon legend, 41.
Mosques in Chinese Re-
public, 184.
":Mother," the deity, 59.
Mukden's tombs, 165.
Myths about heavenly
bodies, 40.
Xative entertainment, 148.
INDEX
277
Natural features of Cliina,
24.
Nature, principals of, 32.
Needles, connection with
marriage, 78.
Neglect of girls' educa-
tion, G5.
Negligee at home, 85.
New Year's festivities,
218.
Occupations, differences in,
144.
Open-air barbers, 99.
Opium trade, 25G.
"Outside Barbarians," 10.
Pariali class, none, 119.
"Pastor Princes," 9.
"Peking Gazette," 143.
Physicians, foreign, their
importance, 71.
Physical appearance of the
Chinese, 144, 148.
Physical conditions, carlv,
52.
Pictorial art, decline of,
90.
Playmates for an imperial
prince, 21C.
Pleasures for an imperial
prince, few, 214.
Polo, the family, 3, 89,
137; made China known,
200.
Polo, !Marco, his narrative,
201, 224.
Political parties, 121.
Polyandry, repulsive fea-
tures, 173.
Polygamy and concubi-
nage, 79.
Population of China. 22.
Portuguese in China, 202.
Position of married wom-
an, not affected by
former life, 117.
Poultry plentiful, 248.
Poverty of the Chinese,
220.
"Prayer-wheel," 175.
Prince, an imperial; his
training, 239 ct seq.;
few pleasures, 214; play-
mates, 216.
Privacy, lack of in home,
85.
Privileged classes, offi-
cials, 122.
Provincial governors, 10.
Ptolemy on the country of
Scrice, 19G.
Public schools, 02.
Pwanku, 32.
Races of mankind, 3.
Railways, 240.
Recognition of Chinese
Republic. 257, 2G1.
"Red Cords" at marriage,
legend of, 77.
Reforms, early proposals,
18.
Reinaud, J. F., French
Orientalist, 195.
Religious belief now free,
Gl.
Republican form of gov-
ernment in China, 17.
Rice, cooking of, 145.
Ricold of Monte Croce,
Friar, 200.
River craft. 236.
River valleys, 2G.
Rivers of eastern Asia, 27.
Roads, 231.
Roof>. catenary curve, 12.
Rubruquis, Friar, 87.
278
INDEX
Samshu, liquor, 109.
School, an old-time, 63.
Scope of former education,
64.
Scrolls in mosques, 185.
Sea-food, 249.
Secret societies, 121.
Sedan-cliairs, 100, 238.
"Selecting Fruit," a game,
108.
Semi-foreign residences,
85.
Seres, China, 194, 196.
Sexes do not mingle in
society, 121.
Shaving the boy's head,
211.
Shensi settlement by
Chinese, 12.
"Showing the Fist," a
game like mora, 113.
Silk culture, its begin-
ning, 40.
Small feet, 118.
Socialism in China, 18.
Social lines in China,
116.
Sons of Han, 10, 11.
Soothsayers and similar
classes, 123.
Spirit-rapping, 125.
Splendor in palace, 129.
Sports, for boys, 111; for
girls, 107.
Stage, the, not reputable,
229.
Stein,' M. A., 192.
Stories about betrothal
and marriage, 76.
Sui-jin, a mythical per-
sonage, 35.
Sung emperors, patrons of
arts and letters, 136.
Sun Yat-sen, 68.
Sz-ma Ts'ien, historian, 14.
Temujin, Genghis Khan,
career, 16.
Terrien de Lacouperie,
theory about Chinese, 5,
9.
Theatrical performances,
117.
"The Faithful Gander,"
folk-lore tale, 53.
Theories of human evolu-
tion, 3, 5.
"Three Kingdoms," Story
of the, 49.
"Three mythical person-
ages," the, 34.
Tibet, 167, 168; "fields,"
170; traveling in, 175.
Tibetan, dwellings, 174;
false claim to pure
Buddhism, 176; monas-
teries, 175; poverty, 171;
religions, 175-177; wom-
en, 173,
Tibetans, marriage cus-
toms, polyandry, 170-
172; Mongoloid family,
168.
Time, how measured, 52.
"Tip-cat," a game, 112.
Toy-making, 96.
Training of boys, 216.
Traitors, the three great-
est, 133.
"Treating," not common,
109.
Trigrams, kwa, 37.
Troublesome citizens, 1.
Ts'ao Ts'ao, traitor, 135.
Tnng Cliao, traitor, 134.
Turkestan, Chinese 188.
Vehicles 231.
Visit to family tombs, 102.
Wang An-shih, socialist,
18.
INDEX
279
Wang Mang, traitor, 133.
Wang, a Mahometan, liia
duplicity, 182.
Water traveling preferred,
235.
Wedding, 75.
Wheelbarrow, 233.
Williams, S. W., "The
Middle Kingdom," 59.
Writing, invention of, 39.
Written language, 53.
Woman's pleasures, 101.
Worshiping at tombs, 103.
Yang, a principle of Na-
ture, 32.
Yellow race, age, dignity,
origin, 4.
Yu, a principle of Nature,
32.
Yu-chau, famous mytho-
logical character, 35.
Yule, H., on early defini-
tion of "China," 197.
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